
OSCAR WILDE 



THE POETICAL WORKS 

OF 

OSCAR WILDE 



WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 

BY 

NATHAN HASKELL DOLE 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



\* I 3 



Copyright, 1913, 
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY. 



£ 



TO MY WIFE 

WITH A COPY OF MY POEMS 

I can write no stately proem 
As a prelude to my lay; 

From a poet to a poem 
I would dare to say. 

For if of these fallen petals 

One to you seem fair, 
Love will waft it till it settles 

On your hair. 

And when wind and winter harden 

All the loveless land, 
It will whisper of the garden, 

You will understand. 




CONTENTS 

DEDICATION : To my Wife, with a Copy of my 

Poems Page iii 

(From Book-Song, London, 1893.) 

INTRODUCTION xiii 

RAVENNA 1 

(Newdigate Prize Poem. Recited in the theatre, Ox- 
ford, June 26, 1878. Poem was dedicated to 
Miss Constance Fletcher, who wrote under the 
pseudonym of "George Fleming.") 

POEMS 17 

(First collected in one volume in 1881. Published 
by David Bogue, London.) 

Helas! 18 

Eleutheria 19 

(Title of first division of "Poems.") 

Ave Imperatrix 21 

(First appeared in The World, London, August, 
1880.) 

Sonnet to Liberty 27 

To Milton 28 

Louis Napoleon 29 

Sonnet on the Massacre of the Christians in 

Bulgaria 30 

v 



vi CONTENTS 

Quantum Mutata Page 31 

Libertatis Sacra Fames 32 

(First appeared in The World, November, 1880.) 

Theoretikos 33 

The Garden of Eros 35 

Rosa Mystica 49 

Requiescat 51 

Sonnet on Approaching Italy 52 

(First appeared in The Irish Monthly, June, 1877.) 

San Miniato 53 

Ave Maria Gratia Plena 54 

(From Kottabos, Michaelmas Term, 1879.) 

Italia 55 

Sonnet written in Holy Week at Genoa 56 

(From The Illustrated Monitor, July, 1877.) 

Rome Unvisited 57 

(From The Month and Catholic Review, September, 
1876.) 

Urbs Sacra iEterna 61 

(First appeared in The Illustrated Monitor, June, 

1877.) 

Sonnet on Hearing the Dies Irae Sung in the 

Sistine Chapel 62 

Easter Day 63 

(First appeared in Waifs and Strays, Oxford, June, 
1879.) 

E Tenebris 64 



CONTENTS vii 

Vita Nuova Page 65 

(First appeared in The Irish Monthly, December, 

1877.) 

Madonna Mia 66 

(First appeared as "Wasted Days," in Kottabos, 
Michaelmas Term, 1877.) 

The New Helen 67 

(From Time, A Monthly Magazine, July, 1879. Is 
addressed to Mrs. Langtry.) 

The Burden of Itys 71 

Wind Flowers 

Impression du Matin 91 

(First appeared in The World, March, 1881.) 

Magdalen Walks 92 

(First appeared in The Irish Monthly, April, 1878.) 

Athanasia 94 

(First published as "The Conqueror of Time," in 
Time, A Monthly Magazine, April, 1879.) 

Serenade 97 

Endymion 99 

La Bella Donna della mia Mente 101 
(First appeared in Kottabos, Trinity Term, 1876.) 

Chanson 103 

Charmides 105 
Flowers of Gold 

Impressions. I. Les Silhouettes 139 

II. La Fuite de la Lune 140 

(First appeared in The Irish Monthly, February, 

1877.) 



viii CONTENTS 

The Grave of Keats Page 141 

(First appeared in The Irish Monthly, July, 1877.) 

Theocritus: A Villanelle 142 

In the Gold Room: A Harmony 143 

Ballade de Marguerite 144 

(First appeared in Kottabos, Hilary Term, 1879.) 

The Dole of the King's Daughter 147 

(First appeared in Dublin University Magazine, 
June, 1876.) 

Amor Intellectuals 149 

Santa Decca 150 

A Vision 151 

(First appeared as "A Night Vision," in Kottabos, 
Hilary Term, 1877.) 

Impression de Voyage 152 

(First appeared in Waifs and Strays, Oxford, 1880.) 
The Grave of Shelley 153 

By the Arno 154 

(First appeared in Dublin University Magazine, 
March, 1876.) 

Impressions de Theatre 

Fabien dei Franchi 157 

Phedre 158 

(First appeared in The World, June, 1878.) 
Sonnets written at the Lyceum Theatre: 

I. Portia 159 

(First appeared in The World, January, 1880.) 

II. Queen Henrietta Maria 160 

(First appeared in The World, July, 1879.) 
Camma 161 



CONTENTS ix 

Panthea Page 163 

The Fourth Movement 

Impression: Le Reveillon 175 

At Verona 1*76 

Apologia 177 

Quia Multum Amavi 179 

Silentium Amoris 180 

Her Voice 181 

My Voice 183 

Tedium Vitae 184 

HlJMANITAD 185 

Flowee of Love 

rXuxuxixpo? "Epw? 209 

THE SPHINX (1894) 213 

THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 235 

(First published by Leonard Smithers, London, 1898. 
The poem was dedicated to Charles T. Wool- 
dridge, a trooper of the Royal Horse Guards, 
who was executed for the murder of his wife.) 

UNCOLLECTED POEMS (1876-1893) 

From Spring Days to Winter 267 

(From Dublin University Magazine, January, 1876.) 

A'tXcvov ca'Xivov ei%£ to B' eu vix.aTo> 268 

(From Dublin University Magazine, September, 1876.) 



CONTENTS 

The True Knowledge Page 269 

(From The Irish Monthly, September, 1876.) 

Lotus Leaves 270 

(From The Irish Monthly, February, 1877.) 

Wasted Days 273 

(First form of "Madonna Mia," in Kottabos, Mich- 
aelmas Term, 1877.) 

Impressions : I. Le Jardin 274 

II. La Mer 275 

(From Our Continent, Philadelphia, February, 1882.) 

Under the Balcony 276 

(From The Shaksperean Show-Book, 1884.) 

The Harlot's House 278 

(First appeared in The Dramatic Review, April, 
1885.) 

Le Jardin des Tuileries 280 

(From In a Good Cause, a Collection of Stories, 
Poems, and Illustrations, June, 1885.) 

On the Recent Sale by Auction of Keats' 

Love Letters 281 

(From The Dramatic Review, January, 1886.) 

The New Remorse 282 

(From The Court and Society Review, December, 

1887.) 

Fantaisies Decoratives : I. Le Panneau 283 

II. Les Ballons 285 

(From Christmas Number of The Lady's Pictorial, 
1887.) 

Canzonet 286 

(From Art and Letters, April, 1888.) 



CONTENTS xi 

Symphony in Yellow Page 288 

(From The Centennial Magazine, Sydney, February, 
1889.) 

In the Forest 289 

(From Christmas Number of The Lady's Pictorial, 
1889.) 

With a Copy of "A House of Pomegranates" 290 

(From Book-Song: An Anthology of Books and 
Bookmen from Modem Authors. Edited by 
Gleeson White. London, 1893.) 

To L. L. 291 

(Written to Mrs. Langtry, 1884.) 



POEMS IN PROSE 

(From The Fortnightly Review, 1894.) 

I. The Artist 297 

II. The Doer of Good 298 

III. The Disciple 300 

(First appeared in The Spirit Lamp, June, 1893.) 

IV. The Master 301 

V. The House of Judgment 302 

First appeared in The Spirit Lamp, February, 1893.) 

VI. The Teacher of Wisdom 305 

TRANSLATIONS (1875-1880) 

Chorus of Cloud Maidens 315 

(From the Dublin University Magazine, November, 
1875. Said to be the earliest known published 
poem by Wilde.) 



xii CONTENTS 

P Y)v<pS(a Page 317 

(From Kottabos, Michaelmas Term, 1876.) 

A Fragment from the Agamemnon of 

JEschylus 320 

(From Kottabos, Hilary Term, 1877.) 

Sen Artysty; or, The Artist's Dream 324 

(From The Green Boom, 1880.) 

INDEX OF TITLES AND FIRST LINES 329 



INTRODUCTION 

A CERTAIN parallel can be drawn between the 
career of Oscar Wilde and that greater poet of 
whom Wilde spoke as one who gave to Athena his 
sword and lyre — 

"Like iEschylus at well-fought Marathon 
And died to show that Milton's England still could 
bear a son. 

Both were to the last degree unfortunate in their par- 
ents. The titled fathers of both were notorious for 
their irregular lives. The mothers of both were eccen- 
tric, to say the least. Both of them published volumes 
of immature verse which roused the ire of the critics. 
Both won a reputation which time has confirmed. Both 
jeopardized their popularity by immoral practices. 
Both died in the prime of life. In the case of both 
the fortunate adjusting justice of mankind has sepa- 
rated the man's life from his works and given him 
credit for all the good, reconciliation for his confes- 
sion and his atonement, and forgetfulness for what was 
his alloy of ill. 

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, October 16, 1854. 
His father, William Robert Wills Wilde, was Surgeon- 
Oculist-in-Ordinary to the Queen, a Chevalier of the 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

Kingdom of Sweden, the founder of St. Mark's Oph- 
thalmic Hospital and of the Dublin Quarterly Journal 
of Science, "the father of modern otology," and the 
author of various books on Irish history and archaeol- 
ogy. He was knighted by the Viceroy, Lord Carlisle, 
"not so much for his high professional reputation, 
which was European and had been recognized by many 
countries in Europe, but to mark the Viceroy's sense 
of the services he had rendered to statistical science, 
especially in connection with the Irish census." In spite 
of his kindness of heart and his professional ability, 
he was a man of unbridled passions. He was also no- 
torious for his untidiness. Just after he received his 
title, an Englishman, newly arrived in Dublin, speak- 
ing of the passage across the Channel remarked that 
it was the dirtiest night he had ever seen. Father 
Healy, who heard him exclaimed, "Oh, then it must 
have been wild !" 

Oscar Wilde's mother was Jane Francesca Elgee. 
Under the name of "Speranza" she wrote poems ; un- 
der the pseudonym of "John Fenshaw Ellis" she pub- 
lished political articles, one of which, printed in the 
Nation, led to the suppression of that firebrand news- 
paper. She claimed that her family was of Italian 
origin and the name Elgee was a corruption of the 
family name of Dante Alighieri. She is described as 
being frequently in a state of gushing exaltation, with 
a capacity for discovering romance in what was trite 
and commonplace. She had no need, however, of go- 
ing back to Dante for a distinguished ancestry. She 



INTRODUCTION xv 

was well connected. Her paternal grandfather was 
Archdeacon Elgee of Wexford. Her mother was 
granddaughter of Dr. Kingsbury, president of the 
Irish College of Physicians. One of her uncles was 
Sir Charles Ormsby, Bart. One of her cousins was 
Sir Robert McClure, a famous explorer. The Rev. 
Charles Robert Maturin, author of novels which ex- 
ceeded Ann Radcliffe's in extravagance, was her great 
uncle. From his novel, "Melmoth the Wanderer," 
Wilde took the name which he used as a cloak to hide 
the shame of his latter days. 

Lady Wilde, during her days of prosperity, main- 
tained a salon at her Dublin residence in Merrion 
Square. As the beauty of which she had been inor- 
dinately proud in her youth faded, she tried to keep up 
its illusion by darkening the rooms where she received 
her guests. She plastered her face with powder and 
wore costumes which were bizarre and ridiculous. She 
was very tall, and when she appeared in a crimson 
gown of voluminous folds and covered with flounces of 
Limerick lace, with a gold-embroidered Oriental sash 
and wearing a gilt crown of laurels, quaint jewelry 
on her bare arms and on her broad bosom a row of 
miniature brooches with family portraits, "giving her 
the appearance of a walking mausoleum," in her hands 
a scent-bottle, a lace handkerchief, and a fan, it is not 
strange that she should have reminded her visitors "of 
a tragedy queen at a suburban theatre." A lady who 
attended one of her receptions after she had gone 
several steps down on the social ladder remarks that 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

"she had a horror of the 'miasma of the commonplace' ; 
her eyes were fixed on ideals, on heroes, ancient and 
modern, and thus she missed much that was lying near 
her, 'close to her feet,' in her fervent admiration of the 
dim, the distant, and the unapproachable." Once when 
the bailiffs were in temporary possession of her house 
in Merrion Square, a lady called to express her sym- 
pathy in her troubles, but found her lying on the sofa 
reading the "Prometheus Bound" of iEschylus, from 
which she began to declaim passages with exalted en- 
thusiasm, quite oblivious of the domestic storm. 

When Lady Wilde's second son was born, her dis- 
appointment that he was not a girl was so great that 
she dressed him like a girl and treated him as if he 
were of that sex. His father selected for him a series 
of high-sounding names. He was christened Oscar 
Fingal O'Flaherty Wills Wilde. In later years it irri- 
tated Wilde to be reminded that he had such a pen- 
tameter name. The house where he was born had a 
beautiful outlook, overlooking the Merrion Square gar- 
dens. There were open spaces and gardens on all 
sides. There was one younger sister born, but she 
died, commemorated by Oscar Wilde in the sincere and 
tender poem, "Requiescat," given here on page 51. 

Wilde's early education was received at home. He 
had tutors ; he was taken while a child to France and 
there acquired that knowledge of French which after- 
ward flowered in "Salome." He used to travel with 
his father in quest of archaeological treasures. But it 
may be easily imagined that the childhood training of 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

such an environment was not particularly conducive to 
the building of character. His father's escapades were 
a scandal. Loose talk was common even in his mother's 
drawing-room. Yet it is to Wilde's credit that his 
friend and biographer was able to say of him : "During 
twenty years of communion with the world, of com- 
merce, by profession and standing, with men and wom- 
en in every rank of life, in many parts and places, 
I never met a man more entirely pure in conversation, 
nor one more disdainful of vice in its vulgarity and 
uncomelin'ess. Never there came the faintest suggestion 
of an unclean thought from those eloquent and inspir- 
ing lips ; no coarse word ever soiled them ; and if be- 
hind the wonderful eyes a demon was indeed crouching, 
madness here too allied itself with such supreme cun- 
ning of dissimulation, that for me, till the very end, 
he remained the beau ideal of a gentleman in all that 
that word implies of lofty and serene morality. Men to- 
gether, after wine, the world over, hasten with delight, 
in conversation, to a certain class of pleasantry. The 
topic is the same over the Turkish cigarette and the 
white curacoa as over the clay pipe and the pint of 
beer, even if the language differ. In Oscar Wilde's 
presence it was understood amongst his friends that 
who should so jest would commit an unpardonable of- 
fence. . . . Oscar Wilde, as I knew him, was the pur- 
est man in word and deed that I have ever met." 

Lady Wilde, speaking of her two sons, remarked: 
"Willy is all right, but Oscar is wonderful, wonderful. 
He can do anything." This was certainly not true of 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

his skill in mathematics. For when at the age of eleven 
he was sent to the Portora Royal School, founded by 
King Charles at Enniskillen, he distinguished himself 
more by wearing his tall silk hat on week-days than 
by arithmetic. His friend Sherard, indeed, attributes 
much of the recklessness of his after-life to his early 
incapacity for figures. "Has the world's history," he 
asks, "any record of an extravagant mathematician?" 
He made extraordinary progress in his classical and 
English studies and was admitted to Trinity College, 
Dublin, when he was only seventeen. Three years 
later he won the medal founded by Bishop Berkeley. 
The subject for his essay was "The Fragments of the 
Greek Comic Poets." This little gold medal later helped 
to tide him over a financial crisis. Unfortunately he 
lost the pawnbroker's ticket and had to go before a 
magistrate at Marlborough Police Court to recover the 
prize. 

Although he was sixth out of ten candidates to re- 
ceive a scholarship at Trinity, he renounced it and 
went to Oxford, where he became a "demy" at Mag- 
dalen College, having been elected, in the words of 
Dr. Samuel Johnson, "as one of those young men 
elsewhere called scholars, who partake of the founder's 
benefactions and succeed in their order to vacant fel- 
lowships." He was assured an annual income from 
the college of ninety-five pounds for a term of five 
years. 

During one month of Wilde's first term at Oxford, 
John Ruskin, then Slade Professor of Fine Arts, was 



INTRODUCTION xix 

giving bi-weekly lectures in the Oxford Museum on 
"the ^Esthetic and Mathematic Schools of Florence." 
Wilde was one of the "ardent" young men who enjoyed 
his breakfast parties and discussion in Ruskin's rooms 
at Corpus ; he also attended his lectures and put into 
active practice the teachings that went to formulate 
the "Gospel of Labor." He who never rode to hounds 
or played cricket or ventured out in an eight-oar was 
seen breaking stones on the road and helping to fill 
Ruskin's wheelbarrow. It must have been a pose, but 
not unwholesome. 

Fortune was at this time kind to him. He had the 
best rooms in the college, "on what is called the kitchen 
staircase, having a lovely view over the river Cherwell 
and the beautiful Magdalen walks and Magdalen 
bridge." The panelled walls of the two connected 
sitting-rooms were adorned with engravings for the 
most part depicting fair ladies unencumbered with dra- 
peries. He had an abundance of rare and valuable 
pottery, and was once heard to exclaim, "O that I 
could live up to my blue china !" He affected a sharp 
and arrogant wit. What it was may be judged by the 
brilliant and often unkind flashes of repartee in his 
society comedies. One of his admirers made a little 
book of his sayings. They are superficial, light as 
froth, but iridescent with sparkling wit. He kept open 
house, and the undergraduates who dropped in were 
provided with punch and cigars. His Sunday nights 
were famous for their conviviality. 

Wilde's brother Willy could play the piano, but 



xx INTRODUCTION 

Oscar had no ear whatever for music. It bored him. 
Nevertheless, in order to preserve his pose as an aes- 
thete he had to write about music, and his phrase about 
a splendid scarlet thing by Dvorak was regarded as 
particularly characteristic. He also attempted to 
paint. Some one once asked him at Magdalen what he 
would do if he had to earn his own living. "I should live 
in a garret," said he, "and paint beautiful pictures." 

Once while he was at Oxford he was hazed. A party 
of Philistines fell upon him, tied him up, and dragged 
him to the top of a hill. Though he was badly bruised 
he made no protest, but when he was freed he brushed 
his coat and remarked gently, "Yes, the view from this 
hill is really very charming." 

In 1876 Wilde took a first-class in "mods," as the 
first examination for a degree is familiarly called, and 
in the same year he began to contribute to various 
magazines published in Dublin. These he signed with all 
his initials. Many of these poems had affected Latin 
or Greek titles. In the summer vacation of 1877, he 
visited Greece in company with J. P. Mahaffy; prob- 
ably the influence of his experiences can be seen in 
both the titles and the topics of many of his early 
verses. While in Rome, he wrote a description of his 
visit to the tomb of Keats. This was published in the 
Irish Monthly. On his way north he stopped at Ra- 
venna and saw the stronghold of "huge-limbed The- 
odoric, the Gothic king," the pillar of "the bravest 
knight of France, the prince of chivalry, the lord of 
war, Gaston de Foix," the tomb of Dante, and the 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

house where Byron liked to dwell. He returned late 
to Oxford and was fined £45 for the breach of disci- 
pline, but when the following year he again took a 
first class in the Final Honors examination and in 
June won the Newdigate prize for his poem "Ravenna" 
the money was returned to him. "Ravenna" was pub- 
lished in 1878 by T. Shrimpton & Sons, and has since 
become one of the rarities of literature. Those curious 
about such things have discovered in its beautiful lines 
a sort of prophecy of Wilde's own fame and fall. 

At Oxford Wilde dressed soberly enough. His hair 
was not too long. But when he went up to London 
as "Professor of ^Esthetics and Art Critic," he de- 
liberately attracted attention by the extravagance of 
his attire. He wore a velvet coat and knee-breeches, a 
silk shirt with turn-down collar, and a loose, floating 
tie of unusual shade. He carried in his hand a lily 
or a sunflower. His tall figure, his smooth-shaven face, 
and his long hair made him quickly notorious. Punch 
represented his head, with vulgar half-open mouth, at- 
tached to a huge sunflower on a table, together with 
a cigarette box, an ink-stand, and a large jar labelled 
"Waste," while underneath are the lines : 

"iEsthete of ^Esthetes! 
What's in a name? 
The poet is WILDE 

But his poetry's tame. " 

In July, 1881, David Bogue announced in the Athe- 
nceum "Poems by Oscar Wilde : Printed on Dutch Hand- 
made Paper and Handsomely Bound in Parchment." 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

It was a. crown octavo, and its price was ten shillings 
sixpence. It was certainly an aesthetic volume. Its 
contents were made up from his contributions to vari- 
ous periodicals, especially Edmund Yates's Time and 
the World. Two of the sonnets, "To Portia" and 
"Queen Henrietta Maria," were inspired by Ellen 
Terry, who was delighted with them and never re- 
nounced her friendship for their author. 

The critics did not spare the volume. The Saturday 
Review declared that the verses "belonged to a class 
which is the special terror of the reviewers — the poetry 
which is neither good nor bad, which calls for neither 
praise nor ridicule, and in which we search in vain for 
any personal touch of thought or music. ... It is 
not without traces of cleverness, but it is marred every- 
where by imitation, insincerity, and bad taste." The 
critic could not forgive Wilde for thinking that "the 
meadowsweet and the wood anemone "bloom at the same 
time, that that shy and isolated flower, the harebell, 
"breaks across the woodlands in masses, like a sudden 
flush of sea, and that owls are commonly met with in 
mid-ocean." Categorical criticisms of this kind are 
always dangerous. Here in America at least the hare- 
bell often blooms in masses, and the great Northern owl 
which makes midwinter visits South might happen occa- 
sionally to be driven out to sea. 

The Athenceum gave the volume careful but likewise 
unfavorable criticism, declaring that though Mr. Wilde 
had a keen perception of some aspects of natural 
beauty, ,and single lines conveyed striking and accurate 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

pictures, still "its worst faults are artificiality and in- 
sincerity, and an extravagant accentuation of whatever 
in modern verse most closely approaches the estilo culto 
of the sixteenth century." The conclusion was that 
his poems, when their temporary notoriety was ex- 
hausted, would find a place on the shelves of only those 
who hunt after the curious in literature. 

Punch, after declaring that Wilde had followed the 
example of Mr. Lambert Streyke in "The Colonel" in 
publishing a book of poems for the benefit of his fol- 
lowers and his own, declared that the cover was "con- 
summate, the paper distinctly precious, and the type 
utterly too. . . . There is a certain amount of origi- 
nality about the binding, but that is more than can be 
said for the inside of the volume. Mr. Wilde may be 
aesthetic, but he is not original." The review ended by 
calling it a volume of echoes. "It is Swinburne and 
water." On the other hand, Oscar Browning in the 
Academy expressed his conviction that England was 
enriched by a new poet. 

Popularly the work was a success. Four editions 
were sold in a month. It also sold widely in America. 
In the latter country some curiosity had been aroused 
in Wilde as the leader of the ^Esthetic movement. 
America had heard of "Patience," and it was supposed 
men would not be averse to seeing Bunthorne in the 
flesh. Arrangements were accordingly made for the 
poet to visit America and deliver lectures. He sailed 
in December, and on arriving in New York confirmed 
the popular impression that he was to the last degree 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

conceited, by remarking that he was disappointed with 
the Atlantic. It was probably meant for a humorous 
comment — certainly not one to be elaborately defended, 
as his biographer attempts to do. He was interviewed, 
and informed the reporter that he proposed to lecture 
on the Renaissance, which he defined as "a revival of 
the intimate study of the correlation of all the arts." 
The reporter asked him if he called asstheticism a 
philosophy. His answer was : "Most certainly it is a 
philosophy. It is the study of what may be found in 
art. It is the pursuit of the secret of life. Whatever 
there is in all art that represents the eternal truth is 
an expression of the great underlying truth. So far 
aestheticism may be held to be the study of truth in 
art." 

His first lecture, given in Chickering Hall, was a 
success not only in itself but in the class of audience 
attracted. Major Pond then made arrangements to 
conduct a series of lectures throughout the United 
States. In Boston, instead of wearing his aesthetic 
costume, he appeared in ordinary evening dress. But 
sixty Harvard students, who had engaged front seats, 
trooped in in single file, each wearing a swallow-tailed 
coat, knee-breeches, a flowing wig, a green tie, and a 
large lily, and carrying a huge sunflower. The lec- 
turer was equal to the situation. He was always a 
gentleman, and his dignity, courtesj^, and cleverness 
in dealing with their rudeness entirely won his audi- 
ence, who had come expecting some bear-baiting. His 
crowning touch was to offer the young boors the statue 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

of a Greek athlete to stand in their gymnasium. The 
same trick was played by students at Rochester, but 
again Wilde came off best. He told his American au- 
diences some wholesome truths which must have had an 
influence upon the development of good taste. At 
Omaha he described American furniture as "not hon- 
estly made and out of character." At Louisville he 
designated American houses as "ill-designed, decorated 
shabbily, and in bad taste." At Denver he lectured to 
a rough audience and was told that in the hall where he 
spoke a man had been shot the week previous while 
turning his back on the crowd for the purpose of ex- 
amining a chromo-lithograph. Wilde added the char- 
acteristic comment, "This shows that people should 
never look at chromo-lithographs." At Toronto he at- 
tracted an audience of more than a thousand persons. 
At Halifax a reporter thus described him : "The apos- 
tle had no lily, nor yet a sunflower. He wore a velvet 
jacket, which seemed to be a good jacket. He had an 
ordinary necktie, and wore a linen collar, about num- 
ber eighteen, on a neck half a dozen sizes smaller. His 
legs were in trousers, and his boots were apparently 
the product of New York art, judging by their pointed 
toes. His hair is the color of straw, slightly leonine, 
and when not looked after goes climbing all over his 
features." Apparently that reporter was color blind, 
for when Wilde and Mr. (now Sir) Rennell Rodd sat 
in the box at the first New York performance of 
"Iolanthe," the poet's hair was auburn brown, long, 
and womanly. The writer remembers especially the 



xxvi INTRODUCTION 

splendid opulence of his heavy fur coat, but alas ! not 
a word that he spoke clings to the memory. 

An American who was a guest together with Wilde 
at a dinner given by Mme. Modjeska in Boston, became 
annoyed at the Irishman's supercilious attitude toward 
things American, and in private conversation after 
leaving the hotel charged him with being a humbug. 
"I know as well as you yourself," said the American, 
"that you are an advance poster for Gilbert and Sul- 
livan's 'Patience.' Indeed, I am responsible for your 
being over here." 

"What do you mean?" asked Wilde. 

"Well, Miss Helen Lenoir, D'Oyley Carte's Ameri- 
can agent, asked me how the American public could be 
brought to understand the ^Esthetic craze, and I sug- 
gested that you should be hired to give a course of lec- 
tures over here in the costume of an JEsthete, with a 
sunflower in your buttonhole and 'a poppy or a lily in 
your mediaeval hand.' She cabled that evening to 
D'Oyley Carte, and here you are !" 

"You are perfectly right," said Wilde ; "that is the 
reason of my being here, and I am a humbug, as far as 
iEstheticism is concerned. But I was paid a large price 
to come. The son of a poor Irish knight, I found my- 
self rather lost at Oxford. The ^Esthetic wave ran 
high, and I got on its crest. I know that my ability 
will show itself and all this will be forgotten." 

After this frank talk, the two men supped together 
and parted good friends. 

A characteristic anecdote may be added here. A 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

young American girl happened to use the word "nice." 
"My dear young lady," exclaimed Wilde, "such a nasty 
word!" "But, Mr. Wilde," protested the girl, "do 
you think 'nasty' is a 'nice' word?" 

It was often evident that Wilde affected being af- 
fected, and this was particularly shown in his choice of 
adjectives. One of them was "tedious." It represented 
the acme of ennui. 

Edgar Allan Poe, according to Wilde, was America's 
chief poet, but he thought Whitman, "if not a poet, at 
least a man who sounds a strong note, perhaps neither 
prose nor poetry but something of his own that is 
grand, original, and unique." He went over to Cam- 
den to call on Whitman and was distressed by the 
squalor of his appearance as he sat in the untidy lit- 
tle room on Mickle Street, with dust so thick that there 
was no clean spot to sit down on. Nor was Whitman 
impressed by the visitor. 

While in Philadelphia Wilde secured a publisher for 
Rodd's poems, and wrote a preface to the collection. 
The pseudo-aesthetic style in which the volume appeared 
is one of the curiosities of publishing, and the volume 
is now rare. It resulted in breaking the friendship be- 
tween the two men. In Chicago, Wilde publicly praised 
the work of a young Irish sculptor, John Donoghue, 
who had been starving, and thus brought him into 
vogue. In New York he fell into the hands of bunco 
steerers, who in a game of poker robbed him of all his 
ready money. He had also given them a check, but he 
hurriedly drove to the bank and stopped its payment. 



xxviii INTRODUCTION 

Among Wilde's ambitions in coming to America was 
to see his play "Vera" produced. His plans fell 
through, and when a year later it was brought out, it 
met with such a cold reception that it was immediately 
withdrawn. He returned to London apparently not! 
much richer than when he left it, but he had discarded 
his peculiar pose. He had begun a new "period" in 
his life. He proceeded to Paris and began to adopt 
the elegances of the stylish young men of that city. He 
is said to have modelled the dressing of his hair after a 
bust of Nero in the Louvre. He had a suite of rooms 
on the second floor of the Hotel Voltaire on the Quai 
Voltaire, overlooking the Seine and the Louvre. When 
a friend remarked on the beauty of the view, Wilde re- 
plied: "Oh, that is altogether immaterial except to the 
innkeeper, who of course charges it in the bill. A gen- 
tleman never looks out of the window." 

In spite of his references to Nature in his poems, he 
affected a disregard of Nature herself. This is ex- 
pressed in the utterances of Vivian in "The Decay of 
Lying." Vivian, who is the poet himself, says: "My 
own experience is that the more we study Art the less 
we care for Nature. What Art really reveals to us is 
Nature's lack of design, her curious crudities, her ex- 
traordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condi- 
tion. . . . Art is our spirited protest, our gallant at- 
tempt to teach Nature her proper place ;" and then with 
characteristic humor he says: "Nature is so uncom- 
fortable. Grass is hard and lumpy and damp, and full 
of dreadful insects. Why, even Morris's poorest work- 



INTRODUCTION xxix 

man could make you a more comfortable seat than the 
whole of Nature can." 

In Paris he was welcomed into literary, artistic, and 
theatrical circles. But, as in London, his humor was 
taken seriously, as for instance where he was heard to 
I remark that Swinburne was the only Englishman who 
had ever read Balzac, and he declared that he used to 
spend hours at the Louvre in rapt admiration of the 
Venus of Melos. De Goncourt and Daudet simply could 
not understand him. He let it be known that when he 
wrote he wore a white gown with a monkish cowl, in this 
respect imitating Balzac. He also imitated him in 
carrying an ivory stick decorated with turquoises and 
in having his hair curled. While living thus in Paris 
he wrote his play "The Duchess of Padua," which he 
intended for Mary Anderson, but which that actress de- 
clined. William Archer declared that in this play Os- 
car Wilde was a dramatic poet of high order; yet as 
an acting drama it has never been a success. He also 
wrote in the Hotel Voltaire that masterpiece of artifi- 
ciality "The Sphinx," included in the present edition at 
page 234, which contains one line at least memorable 
in its personal application : 

' You wake in me each bestial sense, you make me what I 
would not be. " 

R. H. Sherard, who became intimate with him at this 
time, says of him: "The man who was afterward 
branded as a corrupter of youth, exerted on me as a 
young man an influence altogether beneficial. . . . 



xxx INTRODUCTION 

The example of his purity of life in such a city as 
Paris, of his absolute decency of language, of his con- 
versation, in which never an improper suggestion in- 
truded, the loftier ideals that he pursued, the elegance 
and refinement which endowed him, would have com- 
pelled even the most perverse and dissolute to some re- 
straint." 

Sherard declares that he was good-heartedness per- 
sonified, and tells many stories to illustrate how he 
would sacrifice himself for his friends. At the same 
time, when he was once asked if he would go to the res- 
cue of a man about to throw himself into the river, he 
declared that it would be an act of the grossest im- 
pertinence to do so ; and so in the same spirit he ap- 
parently made no attempt to save the poet Maurice 
Rolliat from ruining himself by drugs. Yet no one is 
known to have seen Wilde himself drink to excess. He 
smoked all the time, and is reported by his friend to 
have been found at midnight searching in the grate for 
cigarette-ends when his supply had given out ; yet when 
suddenly and wholly deprived of tobacco he made no 
complaint. His aversion to physical repulsiveness was 
perhaps more than a pose. He complained that it 
caused him actual pain. He had the same physical re- 
pulsion at the presence of dogs, — they are so tedious, 
he would say. His whimsical way of saying things 
often had real wit. Thus he once remarked, "I have 
been working on my proofs all the morning — and took 
out a comma." Some one asked him, "And in the after- 
noon?" and he replied, "Well, I put it back again." 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 

While living in Paris he spent money like water — 
while he had it. He managed to dispose of his small 
Irish estate. When the money was exhausted, he had 
to leave the gay capital. He first tried lecturing in 
London; then he went to provincial towns with his ad- 
dress on "The House Beautiful." At this time many 
of his possessions were at the pawnbroker's, but he al- 
ways dressed well and looked prosperous. Though ad- 
vertised as "the Great ./Esthete," he refused to make 
any ridiculous exhibition of himself, and what he said 
was perfectly dignified and elevating. "Tall and grace- 
ful and presenting a youthful appearance," wrote a 
provincial journalist, "he delivers his lecture with clear, 
distinct articulation, never hesitating for a word, nor 
striving after flights of eloquence, but handling his sub- 
ject with an amount of assurance and self-possession 
that gives you the impression that he must be quite as 
high an authority as Morris or Ruskin." 

On May 29, 1884, Oscar Wilde was married to Con- 
stance Mary Lloyd. After a curiously bizarre wedding 
the couple went to Paris for their honeymoon. When 
they returned to London, Mrs. Wilde's dowry allowed 
them to take a house in Tite Street, Chelsea. Whistler 
took charge of decorating it. But it was incumbent 
on Wilde himself to work; while doing some lecturing 
and writing in pure literature he also engaged in jour- 
nalistic hack-work. His delightful fairy-tales, later 
published under the title "The Happy Prince and Other 
Tales," were written at this time. He went over to 
Dublin to give two lectures, but they were financial fail- 



xxxii INTRODUCTION 

ures. He was reduced to such straits that his wife 
was compelled to borrow money to buy her boots. He 
was temporarily rescued from this tragedy of circum- 
stances by his appointment as editor of The Woman's 
World. No tobacco was allowed in any part of the 
building; yet Wilde faithfully performed every duty 
imposed upon him. His mother and his wife both con- 
tributed to his magazine. He also secured articles by 
Ouida, Carmen Sylva, Miss Olive Schreiner, Miss Marie 
Corelli, and many other of the best writers of the day. 
But he came to detest journalism. 

The famous essay, "The Soul of Man under Social- 
ism," appeared in 1891. His other chief productions 
at this time were "Intentions" and the "House of Pome- 
granates." He was asked by the editor of Lippincott's 
Magazine for the manuscript of a complete story. He 
dashed off "The Picture of Dorian Gray." The hon- 
orarium for it was most welcome, but the novel was not 
regarded as a success. Some people criticised it as im- 
moral. Walter Pater reviewed it in the Bookman, but 
did not express his real opinion of it. He certainly did 
not agree with those who called it "an immoral work 
wilfully written to corrupt." 

The following year his collection of short stories, 
which had been published the preceding July, under 
the title, "Lord Arthur Saville's Crime," began to 
make a hit, having been favorably reviewed. On the 
twentieth of February his comedy, "Lady Windermere's 
Fan," made its great success at the St. James Thea- 
tre. The author was called before the curtain. He 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

came out with a half-smoked cigarette in his fingers and 
with incredible impudence said that he was pleased that 
they had enjoyed themselves, for that was what he 
himself could say. Nevertheless, all London flocked 
to hear the new comedy, and during the next three years 
he wrote three other plays, "A Woman of No Impor- 
tance," "An Ideal Husband," and "The Importance of 
Being in Earnest." There was no more worry about 
money ; it poured in upon him. And with money began 
that downward Gadarean course of degeneracy, to 
which high living, too much stimulant, and the intoxi- 
cation of success condemned him. 

In March, 1895, Wilde brought a suit for libel 
against the Marquess of Queensberry. In "De Pro- 
fundis" he says : "The one disgraceful, unpardonable, 
and to all time contemptible action of my life was to 
allow myself to appeal to society for help and protec- 
tion. . . . Society turned on me and said, 'Have you 
been living all this time in defiance of my laws, and do 
you now appeal to these laws for protection? You 
shall have these laws exercised to the full. You shall 
abide by what you have appealed to.' " Oscar Wilde 
drove down to the Old Bailey in a brougham and with 
servants in livery. He almost won his case. He made 
a fatal admission. The Marquess was acquitted. Wilde 
was privately advised to leave the country. He was 
either too insane or too proud to take advantage of the 
delay in effecting his arrest. At his first trial the jury 
disagreed. He was released on bail of £2500, three- 
fourths of which was provided by a young nobleman 



xxxiv INTRODUCTION 

who scarcely knew him. That night he was refused ad- 
mittance at several London hotels, and finally after mid- 
night he wandered to his mother's house in Oakley 
Street and begged shelter. His brother, with oddly 
mixed metaphor, says, "He came tapping with his beak 
against the window-pane and fell down on my threshold 
like a wounded stag." A forced sale of his possessions 
had resulted in his ruin. It seemed that there was no 
one to protect his interests. His manuscripts were scat- 
tered on the floor; many of them were hopelessly lost. 
It was called a pillage rather than a sale. A picture 
by Whistler was sold for six pounds. 

On May 25, 1895, Wilde was found guilty and sen- 
tenced to two years' hard labor. "There had been six 
counts against him," says Robert Sherard. "He was 
asked after his release, by a very old friend, as to the 
justice of the finding, and he said: 'Five of the counts 
referred to matters with which I had absolutely nothing 
to do. There was some foundation for one of the 
counts.' fBut why, then,' asked his friend, 'did you not 
instruct your defenders?' 'That would have meant be- 
traying a friend,' said Oscar. Circumstances which 
have since transpired — what for the rest was never in 
doubt in the minds of those who heard it made — have 
proved the absolute truth of this statement." 

For some months he was in Wandsworth Prison, and 
here his wife came to visit him. She was so shocked by 
the change in his appearance that she could not even 
speak to him. She went to live in Genoa, but the fol- 
lowing year she travelled all the way back to London 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 

to break to him the news of his mother's death. He 
never saw her again. Though she had told a friend 
that it was her intention to live with him, this intention 
was delayed and she died in April, 1898. 

Later Wilde was transferred to Reading Jail, and 
here he went through the transformation which is so 
poignantly described in that classic bit of autobiog- 
raphy, "De Profundis." Only those who can believe 
that such a man was too far sunken to suffer would 
ever for a moment accept the theory that has been put 
forward that this is not a sincere confession. 

On his release he left England forever. Taking the 
name of Sebastian Melmoth, he went to the village of 
Berneval. He had a sufficient amount of money to live 
with great economy. But he was reckless with it, giv- 
ing it away, entertaining school children and poets. He 
found it extremely difficult to write under his assumed 
name; but he despatched two letters to the Chronicle: 
one entitled "The Case of Warden Martin," which was a 
plea for the better treatment of children and a humaner 
administration of punishment; the other with its 
Tolstoian title, "Don't Read This if You Want to be 
Happy." At Berneval he also wrote "The Ballad of 
Reading Gaol," expending upon it every possible care. 
This was his last contribution to literature. It was 
published anonymously in 1898, and created a profound 
sensation. Parts of it were compared to Dante's "In- 
ferno." 

He left France for Naples, where he expected to find 
friendship, hospitality, and even luxury as a guest of 



xxxvi INTRODUCTION 

the wealthy young man whose name was scandalously 
connected with his. But in this he was disappointed. 
He found himself stranded in Italy, and in his despair 
he turned against every one, even writing abusive let- 
ters to the most faithful of all his friends, Robert Ross, 
whom he had eulogized in "De Profundis." He returned 
to Paris, where, unable to pay his bills at his lodgings, 
he was literally turned out into the street. The story 
of his last days is pitiful in the extreme. He would sip 
absinthe all day and write all night. He suffered 
agonies with his head. A famous surgeon was men- 
tioned as willing to perform some operation of relief, 
but his fee was prohibitive. "Ah, well," said Wilde, "I 
suppose I shall have to die beyond my means." 

Before his death his faithful friend Robert Ross 
brought a Catholic priest to receive him into the 
Church. He died of cerebro-spinal meningitis on the 
afternoon of November 30, 1900, and was buried in 
Bagneux Cemetery. 

Oscar Wilde had written the Biblical drama "Sa- 
lome" in French for Madame Bernhardt. When his 
ruin was effected, she refused to have part or parcel 
to do with it. It was translated into English by Lord 
Alfred Douglas, but because of the censorship regu- 
lations forbidding the production of plays on Bible 
s.ubjects, it was circulated only in book form. When 
Richard Strauss set it to music, it became recognized 
as one of the masterpieces of modern literature, and 
this, together with his two great prison-productions, be- 



INTRODUCTION xxxvii 

gan his rehabilitation. The hypocritical hysteria that 
caused persons no better than himself to hound him and 
persecute him died down. Whether his crime was due 
to insanity or to mere moral perversity, the treatment 
to which he was subjected was simply outrageous. The 
repentant world is now ready to take him at his real 
value, with pity for his weakness and his sins, but with 
admiration for his brilliant genius. 

He was, indeed, as he called himself, "A Lord of 
Language." He had a beautiful clear style at his best. 
His poetry, though sometimes artificial, sometimes in- 
jured by bombast and by a curious lack of taste, where 
he will spoil or at least injure a fine conception by a 
sad anticlimax, has the elements of beauty, and beauty 
was what he worshipped. He made Art his goddess and 
proclaimed himself her prophet: "I altered the minds 
of men and the colors of things : there was nothing I 
said or did that did not make people wonder. I took 
the drama, the most objective form known to art, and 
made it as personal a mode of expression as the lyric or 
the sonnet ; at the same time I widened its range and 
enriched its characterization. Drama, novel, poem in 
prose, poem in rhyme, subtle or fantastic dialogue, 
whatever I touched I made beautiful in a new mode of 
beauty ; to truth itself I gave what is false no less than 
what is true as its rightful province, and showed that 
the false and the true are merely forms of intellectual 
existence. I treated art as the supreme reality and life 
as a mere mode of fiction. I awoke the imagination of 



xxxviii INTRODUCTION 

my century so that it created myth and legend around 
me. I summed up all systems in a phrase and all ex- 
istence in an epigram." 

Taken all in all, Oscar Wilde was one of the greatest 
men that Ireland ever produced. For in the short span 
of his life he showed himself a master in many domains 
of art. What he might have accomplished had his bril- 
liant career not been interrupted, no one can tell. But 
the body of his work, whether in poetry, in criticism, in 
the drama, in fiction, or in the essay, while not 
extraordinarily extensive, has extraordinary merit. He 
had the soul of a poet, and the good that he did vastly 
outweighs the evil that may and should be forgotten, 
even as we trust it has been forgiven. 

Nathan Haskell Dole. 

Boston, Mass., 

September, 1913. 



RAVENNA 

MDCCCLXXVIII 



TO MY FRIEND 
GEORGE FLEMING 

AUTHOR OF "THE NILE NOVEL " AND " MIRAGE ' 



RAVENNA 



A YEAR ago I breathed the Italian air, — 
And yet, methinks this northern Spring is fair, 
These fields made golden with the flower of March, 
The throstle singing on the feathered larch, 
The cawing rooks, the wood-doves fluttering by, 
The little clouds that race across the sky ; 
And fair the violet's gentle drooping head, 
The primrose, pale for love uncomforted, 
The rose that burgeons on the climbing briar, 
The crocus-bed (that seems a moon of fire 
Round-girdled with a purple marriage- ring) ; 
And all the flowers of our English Spring, 
Fond snow-drops, and the bright-starred daffodil. 
Up starts the lark beside the murmuring mill, 
And breaks the gossamer-threads of early dew ; 
And down the river, like a flame of blue, 
Keen as an arrow flies the water-king, 
While the brown linnets in the greenwood sing. 

A year ago ! — it seems a little time 
Since last I saw that lordly southern clime, 
Where flower and fruit to purple radiance blow, 
And like bright lamps the fabled apples glow. 

3 



4 RAVENNA 

Full Spring it was — and by rich flowering vines, 

Dark olive-groves and noble forest-pines, 

I rode at will ; the moist glad air was sweet, 

The white road rang beneath my horse's feet, 

And musing on Ravenna's ancient name, 

I watched the day till, marked with wounds of flame, 

The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned. 

O how my heart with boyish passion burned, 
When far away across the sedge and mere 
I saw that Holy City rising clear, 
Crowned with her crown of towers ! — On and on 
I galloped, racing with the setting sun, 
And ere the crimson afterglow was passed, 
I stood within Ravenna's walls at last ! 



n 

How strangely still! no sound of life or joy 
Startles the air ; no laughing shepherd-boy 
Pipes on his reed, nor ever through the day 
Comes the glad sound of children at their play : 
O sad, and sweet, and silent ! surely here 
A man might dwell apart from troublous fear, 
Watching the tide of seasons as they flow 
From amorous Spring to Winter's rain and snow, 
And have no thought of sorrow ; — here, indeed, 
Are Lethe's waters, and that fatal weed 
Which makes a man forget his fatherland. 



RAVENNA 

Ay ! amid lotus-meadows dost thou stand, 
Like Proserpine, with poppy-laden head, 
Guarding the holy ashes of the dead. 
For though thy brood of warrior sons hath ceased, 
Thy noble dead are with thee ! — they at least 
Are faithful to thine honour : — guard them well, 
O childless city ! for a mighty spell, 
To wake men's hearts to dreams of things sublime, 
Are the lone tombs where rest the Great of Time. 

in 

Yon lonely pillar, rising on the plain, 
Marks where the bravest knight of France was slain,- 
The Prince of chivalry, the Lord of war, 
Gaston de Foix : for some untimely star 
Led him against thy city, and he fell, 
As falls some forest-lion fighting well. 
Taken from life while life and love were new, 
He lies beneath God's seamless veil of blue ; 
Tall lance-like reeds wave sadly o'er his head, 
And oleanders bloom to deeper red, 
Where his bright youth flowed crimson on the ground. 

Look farther north unto that broken mound, — 
There, prisoned now within a lordly tomb 
Raised by a daughter's hand, in lonely gloom, 
Huge-limbed Theodoric, the Gothic king, 
Sleeps after all his weary conquering. 
Time hath not spared his ruin, — wind and rain 
Have broken down his stronghold ; and again 



6 RAVENNA 

We see that Death is mighty lord of all, 

And king and clown to ashen dust must fall. 

Mighty indeed their glory ! yet to me 
Barbaric king, or knight of chivalry, 
Or the great queen herself, were poor and vain, 
Beside the grave where Dante rests from pain. 
His gilded shrine lies open to the air; 
And cunning sculptor's hands have carven there 
The calm white brow, as calm as earliest morn, 
The eyes that flashed with passionate love and scorn, 
The lips that sang of Heaven and of Hell, 
The almond-face which Giotto drew so well, 
The weary face of Dante ; — to this day, 
Here in his place of resting, far away 
From Arno's yellow waters, rushing down 
Through the wide bridges of that fairy town, 
Where the tall tower of Giotto seems to rise 
A marble lily under sapphire skies ! 
Alas ! my Dante ! thou hast known the pain 
Of meaner lives, — the exile's galling chain, 
How steep the stairs within kings' houses are, 
And all the petty miseries which mar 
Man's nobler nature with the sense of wrong. 
Yet this dull world is grateful for thy song ; 
Our nations do thee homage, — even she, 
That cruel queen of vine -clad Tuscany, 
Who bound with crown of thorns thy living brow, 
Hath decked thine empty tomb with laurels now, 
And begs in vain the ashes of her son. 



RAVENNA 

mightiest exile! all thy grief is done: 
Thy soul walks now beside thy Beatrice ; 
Ravenna guards thine ashes : sleep in peace. 

IV 

How lone this palace is ; how grey the walls ! 
No minstrel now wakes echoes in these halls. 
The broken chain lies rusting on the door, 
And noisome weeds have split the marble floor: 
Here lurks the snake, and here the lizards run 
By the stone lions blinking in the sun. 
Byron dwelt here in love and revelry 
For two long years — a second Anthony, 
Who of the world another Actium made ! — 
Yet suffered not his royal soul to fade, 
Or lyre to break, or lance to grow less keen, 
'Neath any wiles of an Egyptian queen. 
For from the East there came a mighty cry, 
And Greece stood up to fight for Liberty, 
And called him from Ravenna : never knight 
Rode forth more nobly to wild scenes of fight ! 
None fell more bravely on ensanguined field, 
Borne like a Spartan back upon his shield ! 
O Hellas ! Hellas ! in thine hour of pride, 
Thy day of might, remember him who died 
To wrest from off thy limbs the trammelling chain: 
O Salamis ! O lone Platsean plain ! 
O tossing waves of wild Euboean sea! 
O wind-swept heights of lone Thermopylae! 



8 RAVENNA 

He loved you well — ay, not alone in word, 
Who freely gave to thee his lyre and sword, 
Like ^Eschylos at well-fought Marathon: 

And England, too, shall glory in her son, 
Her warrior-poet, first in song and fight. 
No longer now shall Slander's venomed spite 
Crawl like a snake across his perfect name, 
Or mar the lordly scutcheon of his fame. 

For as the olive-garland of the race, 
Which lights with joy each eager runner's face, 
As the red cross which saveth men in war, 
As a flame-bearded beacon seen from far 
By mariners upon a storm-tossed sea, — 
Such was his love for Greece and Liberty! 

Byron, thy crowns are ever fresh and green: 
Red leaves of rose from Sapphic Mitylene 
Shall bind thy brows ; the myrtle blooms for thee, 
In hidden glades by lonely Castaly; 
The laurels wait thy coming: all are thine, 
And round thy head one perfect wreath will twine. 



The pine-tops rocked before the evening breeze 
With the hoarse murmur of the wintry seas, 
And the tall stems were streaked with amber bright ;- 
I wandered through the wood in wild delight, 
Some startled bird, with fluttering wings and fleet, 
Made snow of all the blossoms : at my feet, 



RAVENNA 

Like silver crowns, the pale narcissi lay, 

And small birds sang on every twining spray. 

O waving trees, O forest liberty ! 

Within your haunts at least a man is free, 

And half forgets the weary world of strife : 

The blood flows hotter, and a sense of life 

Wakes i' the quickening veins, while once again 

The woods are filled with gods we fancied slain. 

Long time I watched, and surely hoped to see 

Some goat-foot Pan make merry minstrelsy 

Amid the reeds ! some startled Dryad-maid 

In girlish flight ! or lurking in the glade, 

The soft brown limbs, the wanton treacherous face 

Of woodland god ! Queen Dian in the chase, 

White-limbed and terrible, with look of pride, 

And leash of boar-hounds leaping at her side ! 

Or Hylas mirrored in the perfect stream. 

O idle heart ! fond Hellenic dream ! 
Ere long, with melancholy rise and swell, 
The evening chimes, the convent's vesper-bell, 
Struck on mine ears amid the amorous flowers. 
Alas ! alas ! these sweet and honied hours 
Had 'whelmed my heart like some encroaching sea, 
And drowned all thoughts of black Gethsemane. 



VI 

lone Ravenna ! many a tale is told 
Of thy great glories in the days of old 



10 RAVENNA 

Two thousand years have passed since thou didst see 

Caesar ride forth to royal victory. 

Mighty thy name when Rome's lean eagles flew 

From Britain's isles to far Euphrates blue; 

And of the peoples thou wast noble queen, 

Till in thy streets the Goth and Hun were seen. 

Discrowned by man, deserted by the sea, 

Thou sleepest, rocked in lonely misery ! 

No longer now upon thy swelling tide, 

Pine-forest-like, thy myriad galleys ride ! 

For where the brass-beaked ships were wont to float, 

The weary shepherd pipes his mournful note; 

And the white sheep are free to come and go 

Where Adria's purple waters used to flow. 

O fair! O sad! O Queen uncomforted! 
In ruined loveliness thou liest dead, 
Alone of all thy sisters ; for at last 
Italia's royal warrior hath passed 
Rome's lordliest entrance, and hath worn his crown 
In the high temples of the Eternal Town ! 
The Palatine hath welcomed back her king, 
And with his name the seven mountains ring ! 

And Naples hath outlived her dream of pain, 
And mocks her tyrant ! Venice lives again, 
New risen from the waters ! and the cry 
Of Light and Truth, of Love and Liberty, 
Is heard in lordly Genoa, and where 
The marble spires of Milan wound the air, 



RAVENNA 11 

Rings from the Alps to the Sicilian shore, 
And Dante's dream is now a dream no more. 

But thou, Ravenna, better loved than all, 
Thy ruined palaces are but a pall 
That hides thy fallen greatness ! and thy name 
Burns like a grey and flickering candle-flame, 
Beneath the noonday splendour of the sun 
Of new Italia ! for the night is done, 
The night of dark oppression, and the day 
Hath dawned in passionate splendour : far away 
The Austrian hounds are hunted from the land, 
Beyond those ice-crowned citadels which stand 
Girdling the plain of royal Lombardy, 
From the far West unto the Eastern sea. 

I know, indeed, that sons of thine have died 
In Lissa's waters, by the mountain-side 
Of Aspromonte, on Novara's plain, — 
Nor have thy children died for thee in vain: 
And yet, methinks, thou hast not drunk this wine 
From grapes new-crushed of Liberty divine, 
Thou hast not followed that immortal Star 
Which leads the people forth to deeds of war. 
Weary of life, thou liest in silent sleep, 
As one who marks the lengthening shadows creep, 
Careless of all the hurrying hours that run, 
Mourning some day of glory, for the sun 
Of Freedom hath not shewn to thee his face, 
And thou hast caught no flambeau in the race. 



12 RAVENNA 

Yet wake not from thy slumbers, — rest thee well, 
Amidst thy fields of amber asphodel, 
Thy lily-sprinkled meadows, — rest thee there, 
To mock all human greatness : who would dare 
To vent the paltry sorrows of his life 
Before thy ruins, or to praise the strife 
Of kings' ambition, and the barren pride 
Of warring nations ! wert not thou the Bride 
Of the wild Lord of Adria's stormy sea! 
The Queen of double Empires ! and to thee 
Were not the nations given as thy prey ! 
And now — thy gates lie open night and day, 
The grass grows green on every tower and hall, 
The ghastly fig hath cleft thy bastioned wall; 
And where thy mailed warriors stood at rest 
The midnight owl hath made her secret nest. 
O fallen ! fallen ! from thy high estate, 
O city trammelled in the toils of Fate, 
Doth nought remain of all thy glorious days, 
But a dull shield, a crown of withered bays ! 

Yet who beneath this night of wars and fears, 
From tranquil tower can watch the coming years ; 
Who can foretell what joys the day shall bring, 
Or why before the dawn the linnets sing? 
Thou, even thou, mayst wake, as wakes the rose 
To crimson splendour from its grave of snows ; 
As the rich corn-fields rise to red and gold 
From these brown lands, now stiff with Winter's cold ; 
As from the storm-rack comes a perfect star! 



RAVENNA 13 

O much-loved city ! I have wandered far 
From the wave-circled islands of my home; 
Have seen the gloomy mystery of the Dome 
Rise slowly from the drear Campagna's way, 
Clothed in the royal purple of the day : 
I from the city of the violet crown 
Have watched the sun by Corinth's hill go down, 
And marked the "myriad laughter" of the sea 
From starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady ; 
Yet back to thee returns my perfect love, 
As to its forest-nest the evening dove. 

O poet's city ! one who scarce has seen 
Some twenty summers cast their doublets green, 
For Autumn's livery, would seek in vain 
To wake his lyre to sing a louder strain, 
Or tell thy days of glory ; — poor indeed 
Is the low murmur of the shepherd's reed, 
Where the loud clarion's blast should shake the sky, 
And flame across the heavens ! and to try 
Such lofty themes were folly ; yet I know 
That never felt my heart a nobler glow 
Than when I woke the silence of thy street 
With clamorous trampling of my horse's feet, 
And saw the city which now I try to sing, 
After long days of weary travelling. 



Adieu, Ravenna ! but a year ago, 
I stood and watched the crimson sunset glow 



14 RAVENNA 

From the lone chapel on thy marshy plain : 

The sky was as a shield that caught the stain 

Of blood and battle from the dying sun, 

And in the west the circling clouds had spun 

A royal robe, which some great God might wear, 

While into ocean-seas of purple air 

Sank the gold valley of the Lord of Light. 

Yet here the gentle stillness of the night 
Brings back the swelling tide of memory, 
And wakes again my passionate love for thee: 
Now is the Spring of Love, yet soon will come 
On meadow and tree the Summer's lordly bloom ; 
And soon the grass with brighter flowers will blow, 
And send up lilies for some boy to mow. 
Then before long the Summer's conqueror, 
Rich Autumn-time, the season's usurer, 
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees, 
And see it scattered by the spendthrift breeze; 
And after that the Winter cold and drear. 
So runs the perfect cycle of the year. 
And so from youth to manhood do we go, 
And fall to weary days and locks of snow. 
Love only knows no winter; never dies: 
Nor cares for frowning storms or leaden skies. 
And mine for thee shall never pass away, 
Though my weak lips may falter in my lay. 

Adieu ! Adieu ! yon silent evening star, 
The night's ambassador, doth gleam afar, 



RAVENNA 15 

And bid the shepherd bring his flocks to fold. 
Perchance before our inland seas of gold 
Are garnered by the reapers into sheaves, 
Perchance before I see the Autumn leaves, 
I may behold thy city ; and lay down 
Low at thy feet the poet's laurel crown. 

Adieu ! Adieu ! yon silver lamp, the moon, 
Which turns our midnight into perfect noon, 
Doth surely light thy towers, guarding well 
Where Dante sleeps, where Byron loved to dwell. 

Ravenna, March, 1877. 
Oxford, March, 1878. 



POEMS 

MDCCCLXXXI 



HELAS! 

npO drift with every passion till my soul 
■*- Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play, 
Is it for this that I have given away 
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control? 
Me thinks my life is a twice-written scroll 
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday 
With idle songs for pipe and virelay, 
Which do but mar the secret of the whole. 
Surely there was a time I might have trod 
The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance 
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God: 
Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod 
I did but touch the honey of romance — 
And must I lose a soul's inheritance? 



ELEUTHERIA 



AVE IMPERATRIX 

SET in this stormy Northern sea, 
Queen of these restless fields of tide, 
England! what shall men say of thee, 
Before whose feet the worlds divide? 

The earth, a brittle globe of glass, 

Lies in the hollow of thy hand, 
And through its heart of crystal pass, 

Like shadows through a twilight land, 

The spears of crimson-suited war, 

The long white-crested waves of flight, 

And all the deadly fires which are 
The torches of the lords of Night. 

The yellow leopards, strained and lean, 
The treacherous Russian knows so well, 

With gaping blackened jaws are seen 

Leap through the hail of screaming shell. 

The strong sea-lion of England's wars 
Hath left his sapphire cave of sea, 

To battle with the storm that mars 
The star of England's chivalry. 

21 



22 ELEUTHERIA 

The brazen-throated clarion blows 
Across the Pathan's reedy fen, 

And the high steeps of Indian snows 
Shake to the tread of armed men. 



And many an Afghan chief, who lies 
Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees, 

Clutches his sword in fierce surmise 
When on the mountain-side he sees 

The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes 
To tell how he hath heard afar 

The measured roll of English drums 
Beat at the gates of Kandahar. 

For southern wind and east wind meet 

Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire, 

England with bare and bloody feet 
Climbs the steep road of wide empire. 

O lonely Himalayan height, 

Grey pillar of the Indian sky, 
Where saw'st thou last in clanging flight 

Our winged dogs of Victory? 

The almond-groves of Samarcand, 

Bokhara, where red lilies blow, 
And Oxus, by whose yellow sand 
- The grave white-turbaned merchants go: 



ELEUTHERIA 23 

And on from thence to Ispahan, 

The gilded garden of the sun, 
Whence the long dusty caravan 

Brings cedar wood and vermilion ; 

And that dread city of Cabool 

Set at the mountain's scarped feet, 
Whose marble tanks are ever full 

With water for the noonday heat : 

Where through the narrow straight Bazaar 

A little maid Circassian 
Is led, a present from the Czar 

Unto some old and bearded khan, — 

Here have our wild war-eagles flown, 
And flapped wide wings in fiery fight; 

But the sad dove, that sits alone 
In England — she hath no delight. 

In vain the laughing girl will lean 
To greet her love with love-lit eyes: 

Down in some treacherous black ravine, 
Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies. 

And many a moon and sun will see 

The lingering wistful children wait 
To climb upon their father's knee; 

And in each house made desolate 



24 ELEUTHERIA 

Pale women who have lost their lord 
Will kiss the relics of the slain — 

Some tarnished epaulette — some sword — 
Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain. 

For not in quiet English fields 

Are these, our brothers, lain to rest, 

Where we might deck their broken shields 
With all the flowers the dead love best. 

For some are by the Delhi walls, 
And many in the Afghan land, 

And many where the Ganges falls 

Through seven mouths of shifting sand. 

And some in Russian waters lie, 
And others in the seas which are 

The portals to the East, or by 

The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar. 

O wandering graves ! O restless sleep ! 

O silence of the sunless day ! 
O still ravine ! O stormy deep ! 

Give up your prey ! give up your prey ! 

And thou whose wounds are never healed, 

Whose weary race is never won, 
Cromwell's England! must thou yield 
. For every inch of ground a son? 



ELEUTHERIA 25 

Go ! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head, 
Change thy glad song to song of pain; 

Wind and wild wave have got thy dead, 
And will not yield them back again. 

Wave and wild wind and foreign shore 
Possess the flower of English land — 

Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more, 
Hands that shall never clasp thy hand. 

What profit now that we have bound 

The whole round world with nets of gold, 

If hidden in our heart is found 
The care that groweth never old? 

What profit that our galleys ride, 

Pine- forest-like, on every main? 
Ruin and wreck are at our side, 

Grim warders of the House of pain. 

Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet? 

Where is our English chivalry? 
Wild grasses are their burial-sheet, 

And sobbing waves their threnody. 

O loved ones lying far away, 

What word of love can dead lips send! 

O wasted dust ! O senseless clay ! 
Is this the end! is this the end! 



26 ELEUTHERIA 

Peace, peace ! we wrong the noble dead 
To vex their solemn slumber so; 

Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head, 
Up the steep road must England go, 

Yet when this fiery web is spun, 

Her watchmen shall descry from far 

The young Republic like a sun 

Rise from these crimson seas of war. 



ELEUTHERIA 27 



SONNET TO LIBERTY 

NOT that I love thy children, whose dull eyes 
See nothing save their own unlovely woe, 
Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know,- 
But that the roar of thy Democracies, 
Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies, 
Mirror my wildest passions like the sea 

And give my rage a brother ! Liberty ! 

For this sake only do thy dissonant cries 
Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings 
By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades 
Rob nations of their rights inviolate 
And I remain unmoved — and yet, and yet, 
These Christs that die upon the barricades, 
God knows it I am with them, in some things. 



28 ELEUTHERIA 



TO MILTON 

MILTON ! I think thy spirit hath passed away 
From these white cliffs, and high-embattled 
towers ; 
This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours 
Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey, 
And the age changed unto a mimic play 

Wherein we waste our else too-crowded hours : 
For all our pomp and pageantry and powers 
We are but fit to delve the common clay, 
Seeing this little isle on which we stand, 
This England, this sea-lion of the sea, 
By ignorant demagogues is held in fee, 
Who love her not : Dear God ! is this the land 
Which bare a triple empire in her hand 
When Cromwell spake the word Democracy ! 



ELEUTHERIA 29 



LOUIS NAPOLEON 

EAGLE of Austerlitz ! where were thy wings 
When far away upon a barbarous strand, 
In fight unequal, by an obscure hand, 
Fell the last scion of thy brood of Kings ! 

Poor boy ! thou shalt not flaunt thy cloak of red, 
Or ride in state through Paris in the van 
Of thy returning legions, but instead 

Thy mother France, free and republican, 

Shall on thy dead and crownless forehead place 
The better laurels of a soldier's crown, 
That not dishonoured should thy soul go down 

To tell the mighty Sire of thy race 

That France hath kissed the mouth of Liberty, 
And found it sweeter than his honied bees, 
And that the giant wave Democracy 

Breaks on the shores where Kings lay couched at ease. 



30 ELEUTHERIA 



SONNET 

ON THE MASSACRE OF THE CHRISTIANS IN BULGARIA 

CHRIST, dost thou live indeed? or are thy bones 
Still straitened in their rock-hewn sepulchre? 
And was thy Rising only dreamed by Her 
Whose love of thee for all her sin atones? 
For here the air is horrid with men's groans, 
The priests who call upon thy name are slain, 
Dost thou not hear the bitter wail of pain 
From those whose children lie upon the stones? 
Come down, O Son of God! incestuous gloom 
Curtains the land, and through the starless night 
Over thy Cross a Crescent moon I see! 
If thou in very truth didst burst the tomb 
Come down, O Son of Man! and show thy might, 
Lest Mahomet be crowned instead of Thee! 



ELEUTHERIA 31 



QUANTUM MUTATA 

THERE was a time in Europe long ago 
When no man died for freedom anywhere, 
But England's lion leaping from its lair 
Laid hands on the oppressor! it was so 
While England could a great Republic show. 
Witness the men of Piedmont, chiefest care 
Of Cromwell, when with impotent despair 
The Pontiff in his painted portico 
Trembled before our stern ambassadors. 

How comes it then that from such high estate 
We have thus fallen, save that Luxury 
With barren merchandise piles up the gate 
Where noble thoughts and deeds should enter by: 
Else might we still be Milton's heritors. 



32 ELEUTHERIA 



LIBERTATIS SACRA FAMES 

ALBEIT nurtured in democracy, 
And liking best that state republican 
Where every man is Kinglike and no man 
Is crowned above his fellows, yet I see, 
Spite of this modern fret for Liberty, 
Better the rule of One, whom all obey, 
Than to let clamorous demagogues betray 
Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy. 
Wherefore I love them not whose hands profane 
Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street 
For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign 
Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade, 
Save Treason and the dagger of her trade, 
Or Murder with his silent bloody feet. 



ELEUTHERIA 33 



THEORETIKOS 

fTl HIS mighty empire hath but feet of clay : 
■*- Of all its ancient chivalry and might 
Our little island is forsaken quite: 

Some enemy hath stolen its crown of bay, 

And from its hills that voice hath passed away 
Which spake of Freedom: O come out of it, 
Come out of it, my Soul, thou art not fit 

For this vile traffic-house, where day by day 
Wisdom and reverence are sold at mart, 
And the rude people rage with ignorant cries 

Against an heritage of centuries. 

It mars my calm: wherefore in dreams of Art 
And loftiest culture I would stand apart, 

Neither for God, nor for his enemies- 



THE GARDEN OF EROS 



THE GARDEN OF EROS 

|"T is full summer now, the heart of June, 
-■■ Not yet the sun-burnt reapers are astir 
Upon the upland meadow where too soon 
Rich autumn time, the season's usurer, 
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees, 
And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spend- 
thrift breeze. 

Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil, 

That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on 

To vex the rose with jealousy, and still 
The harebell spreads her azure pavilion, 

And like a strayed and wandering reveller 

Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June's 
messenger 

The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade, 

One pale narcissus loiters fearfully 
Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid 

Of their own loveliness some violets lie 
That will not look the gold sun in the face 
For fear of too much splendour, — ah! methinks it is a 
place 

37 



38 THE GARDEN OF EROS 

Which should be trodden by Persephone 

When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis ! 

Or danced on by the lads of Arcady ! 
The hidden secret of eternal bliss 

Known to the Grecian here a man might find, 

Ah! you and I may find it now if Love and Sleep be 
kind. 

There are the flowers which mourning Herakles 
Strewed on the tomb of Hylas, columbine, 

Its white doves all a-flutter where the breeze 
Kissed them too harshly, the small celandine, 

That yellow-kirtled chorister of eve, 

And lilac lady's-smock, — but let them bloom alone, and 
leave 

Yon spired hollyhock red-crocketed 

To sway its silent chimes, else must the bee, 

Its little bellringer, go seek instead 
Some other pleasaunce; the anemone 

That weeps at daybreak, like a silly girl 

Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurl 

Their painted wings beside it, — bid it pine 

In pale virginity ; the winter snow 
Will suit it better than those lips of thine 

Whose fires would but scorch it, rather go 
And pluck that amorous flower which blooms alone, 
Fed by the pander wind with dust of kisses not its 
.own. 



THE GARDEN OF EROS 39 

The trumpet-mouths of red convolvulus 
So dear to maidens, creamy meadow-sweet 

Whiter than Juno's throat and odorous 
As all Arabia, hyacinths the feet 

Of Huntress Dian would be loth to mar 

For any dappled fawn, — pluck these, and those fond 
flowers which are 

Fairer than what Queen Venus trod upon 

Beneath the pines of Ida, eucharis, 
That morning star which does not dread the sun, 

And budding marjoram which but to kiss 
Would sweeten Cytherasa's lips and make 
Adonis jealous, — these for thy head, — and for thy girdle 
take 

Yon curving spray of purple clematis 

Whose gorgeous dye outflames the Tyrian king, 

And foxgloves with their nodding chalices, 

But that one narciss which the startled Spring 

Let from her kirtle fall when first she ard 

In her own woods the wild tempestuous song of summer's 
bird, 

Ah ! leave it for a subtle memory 

Of those sweet tremulous days of rain and sun, 
When April laughed between her tears to see 

The early primrose with shy footsteps run 
From the gnarled oak-tree roots till all the wold, 
Spite of its brown and trampled leaves, grew bright with 
shimmering gold. 



40 THE GARDEN OF EROS 

Nay, pluck it too, it is not half so sweet 

As thou thyself, my soul's idolatry! 
And when thou art a-wearied at thy feet 

Shall oxlips weave their brightest tapestry, 
For thee the woodbine shall forget its pride 
And veil its tangled whorls, and thou shalt walk on 
daisies pied. 

And I will cut a reed by yonder spring 

And make the wood-gods jealous, and old Pan 

Wonder what young intruder dares to sing 
In these still haunts, where never foot of man 

Should tread at evening, lest he chance to spy 

The marble limbs of Artemis and all her company. 

And I will tell thee why the jacinth wears 
Such dread embroidery of dolorous moan, 

And why the hapless nightingale forbears 
To sing her song at noon, but weeps alone 

When the fleet swallow sleeps, and rich men feast, 

And why the laurel trembles when she sees the lightening 
east. 

And I will sing how sad Proserpina 

Unto a grave and gloomy Lord was wed, 

And lure the silver-breasted Helena 

Back from the lotus meadows of the dead, 

So shalt thou see that awful loveliness 

For which two mighty Hosts met fearfully in war's 
' abyss ! 



THE GARDEN OF EROS 41 

And then I'll pipe to thee that Grecian tale 

How Cynthia loves the lad Endymion, 
And hidden in a grey and misty veil 

Hies to the cliffs of Latmos once the Sun 
Leaps from his ocean bed in fruitless chase 
Of those pale flying feet which fade away in his em- 
brace. 

And if my flute can breathe sweet melody, 
We may behold Her face who long ago 

Dwelt among men by the iEgean sea, 

And whose sad house with pillaged portico 

And friezeless wall and columns toppled down 

Looms o'er the ruins of that fair and violet-cinctured 
town. 

Spirit of Beauty ! tarry still awhile, 

They are not dead, thine ancient votaries, 

Some few there are to whom thy radiant smile 
Is better than a thousand victories, 

Though all the nobly slain of Waterloo 

Rise up in wrath against them ! tarry still, there are a 
few 

Who for thy sake would give their manlihood 

And consecrate their being, I at least 
Have done so, made thy lips my daily food, 

And in thy temples found a goodlier feast 
Than this starved age can give me, spite of all 
Its new-found creeds so sceptical and so dogmatical. 



42 THE GARDEN OF EROS 

Here not Cephissos, not Ilissos flows, 

The woods of white Colonos are not here, 

On our bleak hills the olive never blows, 
No simple priest conducts his lowing steer 

Up the steep marble way, nor through the town 

Do laughing maidens bear to thee the crocus-flowered 
gown. 

Yet tarry ! for the boy who loved thee best, 

Whose very name should be a memory 
To make thee linger, sleeps in silent rest 

Beneath the Roman walls, and melody 
Still mourns her sweetest lyre, none can play 
The lute of Adonais, with his lips Song passed away. 

Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left 

One silver voice to sing his threnody, 
But ah! too soon of it we were bereft 

When on that riven night and stormy sea 
Panthea claimed her singer as her own, 
And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time 
we walk alone, 

Save tor that fiery heart, that morning star 
Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye 

Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war 
The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy 

Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring 

The great Republic ! him at least thy love hath taught 
to sing, 



THE GARDEN OF EROS 43 

And he hath been with thee at Thessaly, 

And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot 
In passionless and fierce virginity 

Hunting the tusked boar, his honied lute 
Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill, 
And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her 
still. 

And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine, 

And sung the Galilean's requiem, 
That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine 

He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him 
Have found their last, most ardent worshipper, 
And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its con- 
queror. 

Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still, 

It is not quenched the torch of poesy, 
The star that shook above the Eastern hill 

Holds unassailed its argent armoury 
From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight — 
O tarry with us still ! for through the long and common 
night, 

Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer's child, 
Dear heritor of Spenser's tuneful reed, 

With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled 
The weary soul of man in troublous need, 

And from the far and flowerless fields of ice 

Has brought fair flowers meet to make an earthly 
paradise. 



44 THE GARDEN OF EROS 

We know them all, Gudrun the strong men's bride 

Aslaug and Olafson we know them all, 
How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died, 

And what enchantment held the king in thrall 
When lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers 
That war against all passion, ah! how oft through 
summer hours, 

Long listless summer hours when the noon 

Being enamoured of a damask rose 
Forgets to journey westward, till the moon 

The pale usurper of its tribute grows 
From a thin sickle to a silver shield 
And chides its loitering car — how oft, in some cool 
grassy field 

Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight, 
At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come 

Almost before the blackbird finds a mate 
And overstay the swallow, and the hum 

Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves, 

Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy 
. weaves, 

And through their unreal woes and mimic pain 

Wept for myself, and so was purified, 
And in their simple mirth grew glad again ; 

For as I sailed upon that pictured tide 
The strength and splendour of the storm was mine 
Without the storm's red ruin, for the singer is divine, 



THE GARDEN OF EROS 45 

The little laugh of water falling down 

Is not so musical, the clammy gold 
Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town 

Has less of sweetness in it, and the old 
Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady 
Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher har- 
mony. 

Spirit of Beauty ! tarry yet awhile ! 

Although the cheating merchants of the mart 
With iron roads profane our lovely isle, 

And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art, 
Ay ! though the crowded factories beget 
The blind-worm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry 
yet! 

For One at least there is, — He bears his name 
From Dante and the seraph Gabriel, — 

Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame 
To light thine altar ; He too loves thee well, 

Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien's snare, 

And the white feet of angels coming down the golden 
stair, 

Loves thee so well, that all the World for him 
A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear, 

And Sorrow take a purple diadem, 

Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair 

Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be 

Even in anguish beautiful; — such is the empery 



46 THE GARDEN OF EROS 

Which Painters hold, and such the heritage 
This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess, 

Being a better mirror of his age 
In all his pity, love, and weariness, 

Than those who can but copy common things, 

And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty ques- 
tionings. 

But they are few, and all romance has flown, 
And men can prophesy about the sun, 

And lecture on his arrows — how, alone, 

Through a waste void the soulless atoms run, 

How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled, 

And that no more 'mid English reeds a Naiad shows her 
head. 

Methinks these new Actions boast too soon 
That they have spied on beauty ; what if we 

Have analysed the rainbow, robbed the moon 
Of her most ancient, chastest mystery, 

Shall I, the last Endymion, lose all hope 

Because rude eyes peer at my mistress through a tele- 
scope ! 

What profit if this scientific age 

■ Burst through our gates with all its retinue 
Of modern miracles ! Can it assuage 

One lover's breaking heart? what can it. do 
To make one life more beautiful, one day 
More godlike in its period? but now the Age of Clay 



THE GARDEN OF EROS 47 

Returns in horrid cycle, and the earth 

Hath borne again a noisy progeny 
Of ignorant Titans, whose ungodly birth 

Hurls them against the august hierarchy 
Which sat upon Olympus, to the Dust 
They have appealed, and to that barren arbiter they 
must 

Repair for judgment, let them, if they can, 
From Natural Warfare and insensate Chance, 

Create the new Ideal rule for man ! 

Methinks that was not my inheritance; 

For I was nurtured otherwise, my soul 

Passes from higher heights of life to a more supreme 
goal. 

Lo ! while we spake the earth did turn away 
Her visage from the God, and Hecate's boat 

Rose silver-laden, till the jealous day 
Blew all its torches out: I did not note 

The waning hours, to young Endymions 

Time's palsied fingers count in vain his rosary of suns ! 

Mark how the yellow iris wearily 

Leans back its throat, as though it would be kissed 
By its false chamberer, the dragon-fly, 

Who, like a blue vein on a girl's white wrist, 
Sleeps on that snowy primrose of the night, 
Which 'gins to flush with crimson shame, and die be- 
neath the light. 



48 THE GARDEN OF EROS 

Come let us go, against the pallid shield 
Of the wan sky the almond blossoms gleam, 

The corn-crake nested in the unmown field 
Answers its mate, across the misty stream 

On fitful wing the startled curlews fly, 

And in his sedgy bed the lark, for joy that Day is nigh, 

Scatters the pearled dew from off the grass, 

In tremulous ecstasy to greet the sun, 
Who soon in gilded panoply will pass 

Forth from yon orange-curtained pavilion 
Hung in the burning east, see, the red rim 
O'ertops the expectant hills ! it is the God ! for love of 
him 

Already the shrill lark is out of sight, 

Flooding with waves of song this silent dell, — 

Ah ! there is something more in that bird's flight 
Than could be tested in a crucible! — 

But the air freshens, let us go, why soon 

The woodmen will be here ; how we have lived this night 
of June! 



ROSA MYSTICA 



REQUIESCAT 

TREAD lightly, she is near 
Under the snow, 
Speak gently, she can hear 
The daisies grow. 

All her bright golden hair 
Tarnished with rust, 

She that was young and fair 
Fallen to dust. 

Lily-like, white as snow, 

She hardly knew 
She was a woman, so 

Sweetly she grew. 

Coffin-board, heavy stone, 

Lie on her breast, 
I vex my heart alone, 

She is at rest. 

Peace, Peace, she cannot hear 

Lyre or sonnet, 
All my life's buried here, 

Heap earth upon it. 

Avignon. 



51 



52 ROSA MYSTICA 



SONNET ON APPROACHING ITALY 

REACHED the Alps: the soul within me burned 
■■■ Italia, my Italia, at thy name: 

And when from out the mountain's heart I came 
And saw the land for which my life had yearned, 
I laughed as one who some great prize had earned: 

And musing on the marvel of thy fame 

I watched the day, till marked with wounds of flame 
The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned. 
The pine-trees waved as waves a woman's hair, 

And in the orchards every twining spray 

Was breaking into flakes of blossoming foam: 
But when I knew that far away at Rome 

In evil bonds a second Peter lay, 

I wept to see the land so very fair. 

Turin. 



ROSA MYSTICA 53 



SAN MINIATO 

SEE, I have climbed the mountain-side 
Up to this holy house of God, 
Where once that Angel-Painter trod 
Who saw the heavens opened wide, 

And throned upon the crescent moon 
The Virginal white Queen of Grace, — 
Mary ! could I but see thy face 
Death could not come at all too soon. 

O crowned by God with thorns and pain ! 
Mother of Christ ! O mystic wife ! 
My heart is weary of this life 
And oversad to sing again. 

O crowned by God with love and flame ! 
O crowned by Christ the Holy One! 
O listen ere the searching sun 
Show to the world my sin and shame. 



54 ROSA MYSTICA 



AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA 

WAS this His coming! I had hoped to see 
A scene of wondrous glory, as was told 
Of some great God who in a rain of gold 

Broke open bars and fell on Danae: 

Or a dread vision as when Semele 

Sickening for love and unappeased desire 
Prayed to see God's clear body, and the fire 

Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly : 

With such glad dreams I sought this holy place, 
And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand 
Before this supreme mystery of Love: 

Some kneeling girl with passionless pale face, 
An angel with a lily in his hand, 
And over both the white wings of a Dove. 

Florence. 



ROSA MYSTICA 55 



ITALIA 

T TALIA ! thou art fallen, though with sheen 

■*■ Of battle-spears thy clamorous armies stride 
From the north Alps to the Sicilian tide! 

Ay ! fallen, though the nations hail thee Queen 

Because rich gold in every town is seen, 
And on thy sapphire lake in tossing pride 
Of wind-filled vans thy myriad galleys ride 

Beneath one flag of red and white and green. 

O Fair and Strong ! Strong and Fair in vain ! 
Look southward where Rome's desecrated town 
Lies mourning for her God-anointed King! 

Look heaven-ward! shall God allow this thing? 

Nay! but some flame-girt Raphael shall come down, 
And smite the Spoiler with the sword of pain. 

Venice. 



56 ROSA MYSTICA 



SONNET 

WRITTEN IN HOLY WEEK AT GENOA 

I WANDERED through Scoglietto's far retreat, 
The oranges on each o'erhanging spray 
Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day ; 

Some startled bird with fluttering wings and fleet 

Made snow of all the blossoms, at my feet 
Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay : 
And the curved waves that streaked the great green 
bay 

Laughed i' the sun, and life seemed very sweet. 

Outside the young boy-priest passed singing clear, 
"Jesus the Son of Mary has been slain, 
O come and fill his sepulchre with flowers." 

Ah, God ! Ah, God ! those dear Hellenic hours 
Had drowned all memory of Thy bitter pain, 
The Cross, the Crown, the Soldiers, and the Spear. 



ROSA MYSTICA 57 



ROME UNVISITED 



THE com has turned from grey to red, 
Since first my spirit wandered forth 
From the drear cities of the north, 
And to Italia's mountains fled. 

And here I set my face towards home, 
For all my pilgrimage is done, 
Although, methinks, yon blood-red sun 

Marshals the way to Holy Rome. 

O Blessed Lady, who dost hold 
Upon the seven hills thy reign ! 

Mother without blot or stain, 
Crowned with bright crowns of triple gold! 

Roma, Roma, at thy feet 

1 lay this barren gift of song ! 
For, .ah ! the way is steep and long 

That leads unto thy sacred street. 



ROSA MYSTICA 



II 

AND yet what joy it were for me 
To turn my feet unto the south, 
And journeying towards the Tiber mouth 
To kneel again at Fiesole! 

And wandering through the tangled pines 
That break the gold of Arno's stream, 
To see the purple mist and gleam 

Of morning on the Apennines. 

By many a vineyard-hidden home, 
Orchard, and olive-garden grey, 
Till from the drear Campagna's way 

The seven hills bear up the dome! 



ROSA MYSTICA 59 



III 

A PILGRIM from the northern seas- 
What joy for me to seek alone 
The wondrous Temple, and the throne 
Of Him who holds the awful keys ! 

When, bright with purple and with gold, 
Come priest and holy Cardinal, 
And borne above the heads of all 

The gentle Shepherd of the Fold. 

O joy to see before I die 
The only God-anointed King, 
And hear the silver trumpets ring 

A triumph as He passes by ! 

Or at the brazen-pillared shrine 
Holds high the mystic sacrifice, 
And shows his God to human eyes 

Beneath the veil of bread and wine. 



60 ROSA MYSTICA 



IV 

FOR lo, what changes time can bring ! 
The cycles of revolving years 
May free my heart from all its fears, 
And teach my lips a song to sing. 

Before yon field of trembling gold 
Is garnered into dusty sheaves, 
Or ere the autumn's scarlet leaves 

Flutter as birds adown the wold, 

I may have run the glorious race, 

And caught the torch while yet aflame, 
And called upon the holy name 

Of Him who now doth hide His face. 

Arona. 



ROSA MYSTICA 61 



URBS SACRA JETERNA 

ROME ! what a scroll of History thine has been ; 
In the first days thy sword republican 
Ruled the whole world for many an age's span: 

Then of the peoples wert thou royal Queen, 

Till in thy streets the bearded Goth was seen; 
And now upon thy walls the breezes fan 
(Ah, city crowned by God, discrowned by man!) 

The hated flag of red and white and green. 

When was thy glory ! when in search for power 
Thine eagles flew to greet the double sun, 
And the wild nations shuddered at thy rod? 

Nay, but thy glory tarried for this hour, 
When pilgrims kneel before the Holy One, 
The prisoned shepherd of the Church of God. 

Monte Mario. 



62 ROSA MYSTICA 



SONNET 

ON HEARING THE DIES IEJE SUNG IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL 

NAY, Lord, not thus ! white lilies in the spring, 
Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove, 
Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love 
Than terrors of red flame and thundering. 
The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring: 
A bird at evening flying to its nest 
Tells me of One who had no place of rest: 
I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing. 
Come rather on some autumn afternoon, 

When red and brown are burnished on the leaves, 
And the fields echo to the gleaner's song, 
Come when the splendid fulness of the moon 
Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves, 
And reap Thy harvest : we have waited long. 



ROSA MYSTICA 63 



EASTER DAY 

THE silver trumpets rang across the Dome: 
The people knelt upon the ground with awe: 

And borne upon the necks of men I saw, 
Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome. 
Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam, 

And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red, 

Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head: 
In splendour and in light the Pope passed home. 
My heart stole back across wide wastes of years 

To One who wandered by a lonely sea, 

And sought in vain for any place of rest: 
"Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest, 

I, only I, must wander wearily, 

And bruise my feet, and drink wine salt with tears." 



64 ROSA MYSTICA 



E TENEBRIS 

COME down, O Christ, and help me ! reach thy hand, 
For I am drowning in a stormier sea 
Than Simon on thy lake of Galilee: 
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand, 
My heart is as some famine-murdered land 

Whence all good things have perished utterly, 
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie 
If I this night before God's throne should stand. 
"He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase, 
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name 
From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height." 
Nay, peace, I shall behold before the night, 

The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame, 
The wounded hands, the weary human face. 



ROSA MYSTICA 65 



VITA NUOVA 

I STOOD by the unvintageable sea 
Till the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray, 
The long red fires of the dying day 
Burned in the west; the wind piped drearily; 
And to the land the clamorous gulls did flee: 
"Alas !" I cried, "my life is full of pain, 
And who can garner fruit or golden grain, 
From these waste fields which travail ceaselessly !" 
My nets gaped wide with many a break and flaw 
Nathless I threw them as my final cast 
Into the sea, and waited for the end. 
When lo ! a sudden glory ! and I saw 

From the black waters of my tortured past 
The argent splendour of white limbs ascend ! 



66 ROSA MYSTIC A 



MADONNA MIA 

A LILY-GIRL, not made for this world's pain, 
-*■*■ With brown, soft hair close braided by her 
ears, 
And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears 
Like bluest water seen through mists of rain : 
Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain, 
Red underlip drawn in for fear of love, 
And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove, 
Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein. 
Yet, though my lips shall praise her without cease, 
Even to kiss her feet I am not bold, 
Being o'ershadowed by the wings of awe, 
Like Dante, when he stood with Beatrice 
Beneath the flaming Lion's breast, and saw 
The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold. 



ROSA MYSTICA 67 



THE NEW HELEN 

WHERE hast thou been since round the walls of 
Troy 
The sons of God fought in that great emprise? 
Why dost thou walk our common earth again? 
Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy, 
His purple galley, and his Tyrian men, 
And treacherous Aphrodite's mocking eyes? 
For surely it was thou, who, like a star 
Hung in the silver silence of the night, 
Didst lure the Old World's chivalry and might 
Into the clamorous crimson waves of war ! 

Or didst thou rule the fire-laden moon? 

In amorous Sidon was thy temple built 
Over the light and laughter of the sea? 

Where, behind lattice scarlet-wrought and gilt, 
Some brown-limbed girl did weave thee tapestry, 
All through the waste and wearied hours of noon; 
Till her wan cheek with flame of passion burned, 

And she rose up the sea-washed lips to kiss 
Of some glad Cyprian sailor, safe returned 

From Calpe and the cliffs of Herakles ! 



68 ROSA MYSTICA 

No ! thou art Helen, and none other one ! 

It was for thee that young Sarpedon died, 
And Memnon's manhood was untimely spent ; 

It was for thee gold-crested Hector tried 
With Thetis' child that evil race to run, 

In the last year of thy beleaguerment ; 
Ay ! even now the glory of thy fame 

Burns in those fields of trampled asphodel, 

Where the high lords whom Ilion knew so well 
Clash ghostly shields, and call upon thy name. 

Where hast thou been ? in that enchanted land 

Whose slumbering vales forlorn Calypso knew, 
Where never mower rose at break of day 

But all unswathed the trammelling grasses grew, 
And the sad shepherd saw the tall corn stand 

Till summer's red had changed to withered grey? 
Didst thou lie there by some Lethamn stream 

Deep brooding on thine ancient memory, 
The crash of broken spears, the fiery gleam 

From shivered helm, the Grecian battle-cry? 

Nay, thou wert hidden in that hollow hill 
With one who is forgotten utterly, 

That discrowned Queen men call the Erycine; 
Hidden away that never mightst thou see 

The face of Her, before whose mouldering shrine 
To-day at Rome the silent nations kneel; 
Who gat from Love no joyous gladdening, 
But only Love's intolerable pain, 



ROSA MYSTICA 69 

Only a sword to pierce her heart in twain, 
Only the bitterness of child-bearing. 

The lotus-leaves which heal the wounds of Death 
Lie in thy hand; O, be thou kind to me, 

While yet I know the summer of my days; 

For hardly can my tremulous lips draw breath 
To fill the silver trumpet with thy praise, 
So bowed am I before thy mystery ; 

So bowed and broken on Love's terrible wheel, 
That I have lost all hope and heart to sing, 
Yet care I not what ruin time may bring 

If in thy temple thou wilt let me kneel. 

Alas, alas, thou wilt not tarry here, 

But, like that bird, the servant of the sun, 

Who flies before the north wind and the night, 
So wilt thou fly our evil land and drear, 

Back to the tower of thine old delight, 

And the red lips of young Euphorion ; 
Nor shall I ever see thy face again, 

But in this poisonous garden-close must stay, 
Crowning my brows with the thorn-crown of pain, 

Till all my loveless life shall pass away. 

Helen ! Helen ! Helen ! yet a while, 
Yet for a little while, O, tarry here, 

Till the dawn cometh and the shadows flee! 
For in the gladsome sunlight of thy smile 



70 ROSA MYSTICA 

Of heaven or hell I have no thought or fear, 
Seeing I know no other god but thee: 

No other god save him, before whose feet 
In nets of gold the tired planets move, 
The incarnate spirit of spiritual love 

Who in thy body holds his joyous seat. 

Thou wert not born as common women are ! 

But, girt with silver splendour of the foam, 
Didst from the depths of sapphire seas arise! 
And at thy coming some immortal star, 

Bearded with flame, blazed in the Eastern skies, 

And waked the shepherds on thine island-home. 
Thou shalt not die: no asps of Egypt creep 

Close at thy heels to taint the delicate air; 

No sullen-blooming poppies stain thy hair, 
Those scarlet heralds of eternal sleep. 

Lily of love, pure and inviolate! 

Tower of ivory ! red rose of fire ! 

Thou hast come down our darkness to illume: 
For we, close-caught in the wide nets of Fate, 

Wearied with waiting for the World's Desire, 
Aimlessly wandered in the House of gloom, 
Aimlessly sought some slumberous anodyne 
" For wasted lives, for lingering wretchedness, 
Till we beheld thy re-arisen shrine, 

And the white glory of thy loveliness. 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS 

THIS English Thames is holier far than Rome, 
Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea 
Breaking across the woodland, with the foam 

Of meadow-sweet and white anemone 
To fleck their blue waves, — God is likelier there, 
Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks 
bear ! 

Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take 

Yon creamy lily for their pavilion 
Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake 

A lazy pike lies basking in the sun 
His eyes half-shut, — He is some mitred old 
Bishop in partibus! look at those gaudy scales all green 
and gold. 

The wind the restless prisoner of the trees 

Does well for Palaestrina, one would say 
The mighty master's hands were on the keys 

Of the Maria organ, which they play 
When early on some sapphire Easter morn 
In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne 

73 



74 THE BURDEN OF ITYS 

From his dark House out to the Balcony 

Above the bronze gates and the crowded square, 

Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy 
To toss their silver lances in the air, 

And stretching out weak hands to East and West 

In vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations 
rest. 

Is not yon lingering orange afterglow 

That stays to vex the moon more fair than all 

Rome's lordliest pageants ! strange, a year ago 
I knelt before some crimson Cardinal 

Who bare the Host across the Esquiline, 

And now — those common poppies in the wheat seem 
twice as fine. 

The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous 
With the last shower, sweeter perfume bring 

Through this cool evening than the odorous 

Flame- jewelled censers the young deacons swing, 

When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine, 

And makes God's body from the common fruit of corn 
and vine. 

Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the mass 

Were out of tune now, for a small brown bird 

Sings overhead, and through the long cool grass 
I see that throbbing throat which once I heard 

On starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady, 

Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets 
- sea. 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS 75 

Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves 
At daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe, 

And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leaves 
Her little lonely bed, and carols blithe 

To see the heavy-lowing cattle wait 

Stretching their huge and dripping mouths across the 
farmyard gate. 

And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas, 

And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay, 

And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees 
That round and round the linden blossoms play; 

And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall, 

And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red- 
brick wall. 

And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the spring 

While the last violet loiters by the well, 
And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis sing 

The song of Linus through a sunny dell 
Of Warm Arcadia where the corn is gold 
And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the 
wattled fold. 

And sweet with young Lycoris to recline 

In some Illyrian valley far away, 
Where canopied on herbs amaracine 

We too might waste the summer-tranced day 
Matching our reeds in sportive rivalry, 
While far beneath us frets the troubled purple of the 
sea. 



76 THE BURDEN OF ITYS 

But sweeter far if silver-sandalled foot 

Of some long-hidden God should ever tread 

The Nuneham meadows, if with reeded flute 

Pressed to his lips some Faun might raise his head 

By the green water-flags, ah ! sweet indeed 

To see the heavenly herdsman call his white-fleeced flock 
to feed. 

Then sing to me thou tuneful chorister, 

Though what thou sing'st be thine own requiem! 

Tell me thy tale thou hapless chronicler 
Of thine own tragedies ! do not contemn 

These unfamiliar haunts, this English field, 

For many a lovely coronal our northern isle can yield 

Which Grecian meadows know not, many a rose 

Which all day long in vales iEolian 
A lad might seek in vain for overgrows 

Our hedges like a wanton courtezan 
Unthrifty of its beauty, lilies too 

Ilissus never mirrored star our streams, and cockles 
blue 

Dot the green wheat which, though they are the signs 
. For swallows going south, would never spread 
Their azure tents between the Attic vines ; 

Even that little weed of ragged red, 
Which bids the robin pipe, in Arcady 
Would' be a trespasser, and many an unsung: elegy 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS 77 

Sleeps in the reeds that fringe our winding Thames 
Which to awake were sweeter ravishment 

Than ever Syrinx wept for, diadems 

Of brown bee-studded orchids which were meant 

For Cytherasa's brows are hidden here 

Unknown to Cythersea, and by yonder pasturing steer 

There is a tiny yellow daffodil, 

The butterfly can see it from afar, 
Although one summer evening's dew could fill 

Its little cup twice over ere the star 
Had called the lazy shepherd to his fold 
And be no prodigal, each leaf is flecked with spotted 
gold 

As if Jove's gorgeous leman Danae 

Hot from his gilded arms had stooped to kiss 
The trembling petals, or young Mercury 

Low-flying to the dusky ford of Dis 
Had with one feather of his pinions 
Just brushed them ! the slight stem which bears the 
burden of its suns 

i- 
Is hardly thicker than the gossamer, 

Or poor Arachne's silver tapestry, — 
Men say it bloomed upon the sepulchre 

Of One I sometime worshipped, but to me 
It seems to bring diviner memories 

Of faun-loved Heliconian glades and blue nymph- 
haunted seas, 



78 THE BURDEN OF ITYS 

Of an untrodden vale at Tempe where 
On the clear river's marge Narcissus lies, 

The tangle of the forest in his hair, 

The silence of the woodland in his eyes, 

Wooing that drifting imagery which is 

No sooner kissed than broken, memories of Salmacis 

Who is not boy or girl and yet is both, 

Fed by two fires and unsatisfied 
Through their excess, each passion being loth 

For love's own sake to leave the other's side 
Yet killing love by staying, memories 
Of Oreads peeping through the leaves of silent moonlit 
trees, 

Of lonely Ariadne on the wharf 

At Naxos, when she saw the treacherous crew 
Far out at sea, and waved her crimson scarf 

And called false Theseus back again nor knew 

That Dionysos on an amber pard 

Was close behind her, memories of what Maeonia's 

bard 
« 

With sightless eyes beheld, the wall of Troy 

Queen Helen lying in the ivory room, 
And at her side an amorous red-lipped boy 

Trimming with dainty hand his helmet's plume, 
And far away the moil, the shout, the groan, 
As Hector shielded off the spear and Ajax hurled the 
stone; 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS 79 

Of winged Perseus with his flawless sword 

Cleaving the snaky tresses of the witch, 
And all those tales imperishably stored 

In little Grecian urns, freightage more rich 
Than any gaudy galleon of Spain 

Bare from the Indies ever ! these at least bring back 
again, 

For well I know they are not dead at all, 

The ancient Gods of Grecian poesy, 
They are asleep, and when they hear thee call 

Will wake and think 'tis very Thessaly, 
This Thames the Daulian waters, this cool glade 
The yellow-irised mead where once young Itys laughed 
and played. 

If it was thou dear jasmine-cradled bird 
Who from the leafy stillness of thy throne 

Sang to the wondrous boy, until he heard 
The horn of Atalanta faintly blown 

Across the Cumnor hills, and wandering 

Through Bagley wood at evening found the Attic poets' 
spring, — 

Ah! tiny sober-suited advocate 

That pleadest for the moon against the day ! 
If thou didst make the shepherd seek his mate 

On that sweet questing, when Proserpina 
Forgot it was not Sicily and leant 

Across the mossy Sandford stile in ravished wonder- 
ment, — 



80 THE BURDEN OF ITYS 

Light-winged and bright-eyed miracle of the wood! 

If ever thou didst soothe with melody 
One of that little clan, that brotherhood 

Which loved the morning-star of Tuscany 
More than the perfect sun of Raphael 
And is immortal, sing to me ! for I too love thee well. 

Sing on ! sing on ! let the dull world grow young, 

Let elemental things take form again, 
And the old shapes of Beauty walk among 

The simple garths and open crofts, as when 
The son of Leto bare the willow rod, 
And the soft sheep and shaggy goats followed the 
boyish God. 

Sing on ! sing on ! and Bacchus will be here 
Astride upon his gorgeous Indian throne, 

And over whimpering tigers shake the spear 
With yellow ivy crowned and gummy cone, 

While at his side the wanton Bassarid 

Will throw the lion by the mane and catch the mountain 
kid! 

Sing on ! and I will wear the leopard skin, 
And steal the mooned wings of Ashtaroth, 

Upon whose icy chariot we could win 
Cithasron in an hour ere the froth 

Has overbrimmed the wine-vat or the Faun 

Ceased from the treading ! ay, before the flickering lamp 
of dawn 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS 81 

Has scared the hooting owlet to its nest, 
And warned the bat to close its filmy vans, 

Some Maenad girl with vine-leaves on her breast 
Will filch their beechnuts from the sleeping Pans 

So softly that the little nested thrush 

Will never wake, and then with shrilly laugh and leap 
will rush 

Down the green valley where the fallen dew 
Lies thick beneath the elm and count her store, 

Till the brown Satyrs in a jolly crew 

Trample the loosestrife down along the shore, 

And where their horned master sits in state 

Bring strawberries and bloomy plums upon a wicker 
crate ! 

Sing on ! and soon with passion-wearied face 
Through the cool leaves Apollo's lad will come, 

The Tyrian prince his bristled boar will chase 
Adown the chestnut-copses all a-bloom, 

And ivory-limbed, grey-eyed, with look of pride, 

After yon velvet-coated deer the virgin maid will ride. 

Sing on ! and I the dying boy will see 

Stain with his purple blood the waxen bell 

That overweighs the jacinth, and to me 
The wretched Cyprian her woe will tell, 

And I will kiss her mouth and streaming eyes, 

And lead her to the myrtle-hidden grove where Adon 
lies! 



82 THE BURDEN OF ITYS 

Cry out aloud on Itys ! memory 

That foster-brother of remorse and pain 

Drops poison in mine ear, — O to be free, 

To burn one's old ships ! and to launch again 

Into the white-plumed battle of the waves 

And fight old Proteus for the spoil of coral-flowered 
caves ! 

O for Medea with her poppied spell! 

O for the secret of the Colchian shrine! 
O for one leaf of that pale asphodel 

Which binds the tired brows of Proserpine, 
And sheds such wondrous dews at eve that she 
Dreams of the fields of Enna, by the far Sicilian sea, 

Where oft the golden-girdled bee she chased 

From lily to lily on the level mead, 
Ere yet her sombre Lord had bid her taste 

The deadly fruit of that pomegranate seed, 
Ere the black steeds had harried her away 
Down to the faint and flowerless land, the sick and 
sunless day. 

O for one midnight and as paramour 

The Venus of the little Melian farm! 
O that some antique statue for one hour 

Might wake to passion, and that I could charm 
The Dawn at Florence from its dumb despair 
Mix with those mighty limbs and make that giant breast 
'my lair! 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS 83 

Sing on ! sing on ! I would be drunk with life, 
Drunk with the trampled vintage of my youth, 

I would forget the wearying wasted strife, 
The riven veil, the Gorgon eyes of Truth, 

The prayerless vigil and the cry for prayer, 

The barren gifts, the lifted arms, the dull insensate air! 

Sing on! sing on! O feathered Niobe, 

Thou canst make sorrow beautiful, and steal 

From joy its sweetest music, not as we 

Who by dead voiceless silence strive to heal 

Our too untented wounds, and do but keep 

Pain barricadoed in our hearts, and murder pillowed 
sleep. 

Sing louder yet, why must I still behold 

The wan white face of that deserted Christ, 

Whose bleeding hands my hands did once enfold, 
Whose smitten lips my lips so oft have kissed, 

And now in mute and marble misery 

Sits in his lone dishonoured House and weeps, perchance 
for me. 

Memory cast down thy wreathed shell ! 

Break thy hoarse lute O sad Melpomene! 
O Sorrow, Sorrow keep thy cloistered cell 

Nor dim with tears this limpid Castaly! 
Cease, Philomel, thou dost the forest wrong 
To vex its sylvan quiet with such wild impassioned song! 



84 THE BURDEN OF ITYS 

Cease, cease, or if 'tis anguish to be dumb 

Take from the pastoral thrush her simpler air, 

Whose jocund carelessness doth more become 
This English woodland than thy keen despair, 

Ah! cease and let the northwind bear thy lay 

Back to the rocky hills of Thrace, the stormy Daulian 
bay. 

A moment more, the startled leaves had stirred, 
Endymion would have passed across the mead 

Moonstruck with love, and this still Thames had heard 
Pan plash and paddle groping for some reed 

To lure from her blue cave that Naiad maid 

Who for such piping listens half in joy and half afraid. 

A moment more, the waking dove had cooed, 

The silver daughter of the silver sea 
With the fond gyves of clinging hands had wooed 

Her wanton from the chase, and Dryope 
Had thrust aside the branches of her oak 
To see the lusty gold-haired lad rein in his snorting 
yoke. 

A moment more, the trees had stooped to kiss 
Pale Daphne just awakening from the swoon 

Of tremulous laurels, lonely Salmacis 

Had bared his barren beauty to the moon, 

And through the vale with sad voluptuous smile 

Antinous had wandered, the red lotus of the Nile 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS 85 

Down leaning from his black and clustering hair, 
To shade those slumberous eyelids' caverned bliss, 

Or else on yonder grassy slope with bare 
High-tuniced limbs unravished Artemis 

Had bade her hounds give tongue, and roused the deer 

From his green ambuscade with shrill halloo and 
pricking spear. 

Lie still, lie still, O passionate heart, lie still! 

O Melancholy, fold thy raven wing! 
O sobbing Dryad, from thy hollow hill 

Come not with such desponded answering! 
No more thou winged Marsyas complain, 
Apollo loveth not to hear such troubled songs of pain ! 

It was a dream, the glade is tenantless, 

No soft Ionian laughter moves the air, 
The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness, 

And from the copse left desolate and bare 
Fled is young Bacchus with his revelry, 
Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling 
melody 

So sad, that one might think a human heart 

Brake in each separate note, a quality 
Which music sometimes has, being the Art 

Which is most nigh to tears and memory. 
Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear? 
Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion is not 
here, 



86 THE BURDEN OF ITYS 

Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade, 

No woven web of bloody heraldries, 
But mossy dells for roving comrades made, 

Warm valleys where the tired student lies 
With half-shut book, and many a winding walk 
Where rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple talk. 

The harmless rabbit gambols with its young 
Across the trampled towing-path, where late 

A troop of laughing boys in jostling throng 

Cheered with their noisy cries the racing eight ; 

The gossamer, with ravelled silver threads, 

Works at its little loom, and from the dusky red-eaved 
sheds 

Of the lone Farm a flickering light shines out 

Where the swinked shepherd drives his bleating flock 

Back to their wattled sheep-cotes, a faint shout 
Comes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock, 

And starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill, 

And the dim lengthening shadows flit like swallows up 
the hill. 

The heron passes homeward to the mere, 

The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees, 

Gold world by world the silent stars appear, 
And like a blossom blown before the breeze 

A white moon drifts across the shimmering sky, 

Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody. 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS 87 

She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed, 

She knows Endymion is not far away, 
'Tis I, 'tis I, whose soul is as the reed 

Which has no message of its own to play, 
So pipes another's bidding, it is I, 
Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery. 

Ah! the brown bird has ceased: one exquisite trill 
About the sombre woodland seems to cling 

Dying in music, else the air is still, 

So still that one might hear the bat's small wing 

Wander and wheel above the pines, or tell 

Each tiny dewdrop dripping from the blue-bell's brim- 
ming cell. 

And far away across the lengthening wold, 
Across the willowy flats and thickets brown, 

Magdalen's tall tower tipped with tremulous gold 
Marks the long High Street of the little town, 

And warns me to return; I must not wait, 

Hark! 'tis the curfew booming from the bell at Christ 
Church gate. 



WIND FLOWERS 



IMPRESSION DU MATIN 

THE Thames nocturne of blue and gold 
Changed to a Harmony in grey : 
A barge with ochre-coloured hay 
Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold 

The yellow fog came creeping down 
The bridges, till the houses' walls 
Seemed changed to shadows, and St. Paul's 

Loomed like a bubble o'er the town. 

Then suddenly arose the clang 

Of waking life; the streets were stirred 
With country waggons : and a bird 

Flew to the glistening roofs and sang. 

But one pale woman all alone, 

The daylight kissing her wan hair, 
Loitered beneath the gas lamps' flare, 

With lips of flame and heart of stone. 



91 



92 WIND FLOWERS 



MAGDALEN WALKS 

THE little white clouds are racing over the sky, 
And the fields are strewn with the gold of the 
flower of March, 
The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch 
Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by. 

A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning 
breeze, 
The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-fur- 
rowed earth, 
The birds are singing for joy of the Spring's glad 
birth, 
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees. 

And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound 
of Spring, 
And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing 

briar, 
And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire 
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring. 

And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale 
of love 
Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of 
green, 



WIND FLOWERS 93 

And the gloom of the wych-elm's hollow is lit with 
the iris sheen 
Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of 
a dove. 

See ! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there, 
Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew, 
And flashing a-down the river, a flame of blue! 

The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air. 

[And the sense of my life is sweet ! though I know that 
the end is nigh : 
For the ruin and rain of winter will shortly come, 
The lily will lose its gold, and the chestnut-bloom 

In billows of red and white on the grass will lie. 

And even the light of the sun will fade at the last, 
And the leaves will fall, and the birds will hasten 

away, 
And I will be left in the snow of a flowerless day 
To think on the glories of Spring, and the joys of a 
youth long past. 

Yet be silent, my heart! do not count it a profitless 
thing 
To have seen the splendour of sun, and of grass, 

and of flower! 
To have lived and loved ! for I hold that to love for 
an hour 
Is better for man and for woman than cycles of blos- 
soming Spring.] 



94 WIND FLOWERS 



ATHANASIA 

TO that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught 
Of all the great things men have saved from Time, 
The withered body of a girl was brought 

Dead ere the world's glad youth had touched its prime, 
And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid 
In the dim womb of some black pyramid. 

But when they had unloosed the linen band 

Which swathed the Egyptian's body, — lo ! was found 

Closed in the wasted hollow of her hand 

A little seed, which sown in English ground 

Did wondrous snow of starry blossoms bear, 

And spread rich odours through our springtide air. 

With such strange arts this flower did allure 

That all forgotten was the asphodel, 
And the brown bee, the lily's paramour, 

Forsook the cup where he was wont to dwell, 
For not a thing of earth it seemed to be, 
But stolen from some heavenly Arcady. 

In vain the sad narcissus, wan and white 

At its own beauty, hung across the stream, 

The purple dragon-fly had no delight 

With its gold dust to make his wings a-gleam, 



WIND FLOWERS 95 

Ah ! no delight the j asmine-bloom to kiss, 
Or brush the rain-pearls from the eucharis. 

For love of it the passionate nightingale 
Forgot the hills of Thrace, the cruel king, 

And the pale dove no longer cared to sail 

Through the wet woods at time of blossoming, 

But round this flower of Egypt sought to float, 

With silvered wing and amethystine throat. 

While the hot sun blazed in his tower of blue 
A cooling wind crept from the land of snows, 

And the warm south with tender tears of dew 

Drenched its white leaves when Hesperos uprose 

Amid those sea-green meadows of the sky 

On which the scarlet bars of sunset lie. 

But when o'er wastes of lily-haunted field 

The tired birds had stayed their amorous tune, 

And broad and glittering like an argent shield 
High in the sapphire heavens hung the moon, 

Did no strange dream or evil memory make 

Each tremulous petal of its blossoms shake? 

Ah no ! to this bright flower a thousand years 
Seemed but the lingering of a summer's day, 

It never knew the tide of cankering fears 

Which turn a boy's gold hair to withered grey, 

The dread desire of death it never knew, 

Or how all folk that they were born must rue. 



% WIND FLOWERS 

For we to death with pipe and dancing go, 
Nor would we pass the ivory gate again, 

As some sad river wearied of its flow 

Through the dull plains, the haunts of common men, 

Leaps lover-like into the terrible sea ! 

And counts it gain to die so gloriously. 

We mar our lordly strength in barren strife 

With the world's legions led by clamorous care, 

It never feels decay but gathers life 

From the pure sunlight and the supreme air, 

We live beneath Time's wasting sovereignty, 

It is the child of all eternity. 



WIND FLOWERS 97 



SERENADE 

(for music) 

THE western wind is blowing fair 
Across the dark iEgean sea, 
And at the secret marble stair 

My Tyrian galley waits for thee. 
Come down ! the purple sail is spread, 

The watchman sleeps within the town, 
O leave thy lily-flowered bed, 

O Lady mine come down, come down ! 

She will not come, I know her well, 

Of lover's vows she hath no care, 
And little good a man can tell 

Of one so cruel and so fair. 
True love is but a woman's toy, 

They never know the lover's pain, 
And I who loved as loves a boy 

Must love in vain, must love in vain. 

O noble pilot tell me true 

Is that the sheen of golden hair? 

Or is it but the tangled dew 

That binds the passion-flowers there? 



98 WIND FLOWERS 

Good sailor come and tell me now 
Is that my Lady's lily hand? 

Or is it but the gleaming prow, 
Or is it but the silver sand? 

No ! no ! 'tis not the tangled dew, 

'Tis not the silver-fretted sand, 
It is my own dear Lady true 

With golden hair and lily hand ! 
O noble pilot steer for Troy, 

Good sailor ply the labouring oar, 
This is the Queen of life and joy 

Whom we must bear from Grecian shore! 

The waning sky grows faint and blue, 

It wants an hour still of day, 
Aboard ! aboard ! my gallant crew, 

O Lady mine away ! away ! 
O noble pilot steer for Troy, 

Good sailor ply the labouring oar, 
O loved as only loves a boy ! 

O loved for ever evermore! 



WIND FLOWERS 99 



ENDYMION 

(for music) 

THE apple-trees are hung with gold, 
And birds are loud in Arcady, 
The sheep lie bleating in the fold, 
The wild goat runs across the wold, 
But yesterday his love he told, 

I know he will come back to me. 
O rising moon ! O Lady moon ! 

Be you my lover's sentinel, 

You cannot choose but know him well, 
For he is shod with purple shoon, 
You cannot choose but know my love, 

For he a shepherd's crook doth bear, 
And he is soft as any dove, 

And brown and curly is his hair. 

The turtle now has ceased to call 
Upon her crimson-footed groom, 

The grey wolf prowls about the stall, 

The lily's singing seneschal 

Sleeps in the lily-bell, and all 
The violet hills are lost in gloom. 



100 WIND FLOWERS 

O risen moon ! O holy moon ! 

Stand on the top of Helice, 

And if my own true love you see, 
Ah! if you see the purple shoon, 
The hazel crook, the lad's brown hair, 

The goat-skin wrapped about his arm, 
Tell him that I am waiting where 

The rushlight glimmers in the Farm. 

The falling dew is cold and chill, *■ 

And no bird sings in Arcady, 
The little fawns have left the hill, 
Even the tired daffodil 
Has closed its gilded doors, and still < 

My lover comes not back to me. 
False moon ! False moon ! O waning moon ! c 

Where is my own true lover gone, -r 

Where are the lips vermilion, 
The shepherd's crook, the purple shoon? : 
Why spread that silver pavilion, <*- 

Why wear that veil of drifting mist? j-^ 
Ah! thou hast young Endymion, J< 

Thou hast the lips that should be kissed ! *- 



WIND FLOWERS 101 



LA BELLA DONNA DELLA MIA MENTE 

MY limbs are wasted with a flame, 
My feet are sore with travelling, 
For calling on my Lady's name 
My lips have now forgot to sing. 

O Linnet in the wild-rose brake 
Strain for my Love thy melody, 

O Lark sing louder for love's sake, 
My gentle Lady passeth by. 

[O almond-blossoms bend adown 
Until ye reach her drooping head; 

O twining branches weave a crown 
Of apple-blossoms white and red.] 

She is too fair for any man 

To see or hold his heart's delight, 

Fairer than Queen or courtezan 
Or moon-lit water in the night. 

Her hair is bound with myrtle leaves, 
(Green leaves upon her golden hair!) 

Green grasses through the yellow sheaves 
Of autumn corn are not more fair. 



102 WIND FLOWERS 

Her little lips, more made to kiss 
Than to cry bitterly for pain, 

Are tremulous as brook-water is, 
Or roses after evening rain. 

Her neck is like white melilote 
Flushing for pleasure of the sun, 

The throbbing of the linnet's throat 
Is not so sweet to look upon. 

As a pomegranate, cut in twain, 

White-seeded, is her crimson mouth, 

Her cheeks are as the fading stain 

Where the peach reddens to the south. 

O twining hands ! O delicate 

White body made for love and pain! 

O House of love ! O desolate 

Pale flower beaten by the rain! 

[God can bring Winter unto May, 
And change the sky to flame and blue, 

Or summer corn to gold from grey: 
One thing alone He cannot do. 

He cannot change my love to hate, 
Or make thy face less fair to see, 

Though now He knocketh at the gate 
With life and death — for you and me.] 



WIND FLOWERS 103 



CHANSON 

A RING of gold and a milk-white dove 
Are goodly gifts for thee, 
And a hempen rope for your own love 
To hang upon a tree. 

For you a House of Ivory 

(Roses are white in the rose-bower) ! 
A narrow bed for me to lie 

(White, O white, is the hemlock flower) ! 

Myrtle and jessamine for you 
(O the red rose is fair to see) ! 
'or me the cypress and the rue 
(Fairest of all is rosemary) ! 

For you three lovers of your hand 

(Green grass where a man lies dead) ! 

For me three paces on the sand 
(Plant lilies at my head) ! 



CHARMIDES 



CHARMIDES 



HE was a Grecian lad, who coming home 
With pulpy figs and wine from Sicily 
Stood at his galley's prow, and let the foam 

Blow through his crisp brown curls unconsciously, 
And holding wave and wind in boy's despite 
Peered from his dripping seat across the wet and stormy 
night 

Till with the dawn he saw a burnished spear 
Like a thin thread of gold against the sky, 

And hoisted sail, and strained the creaking gear, 
And bade the pilot head her lustily 

Against the nor'west gale, and all day long 

Held on his way, and marked the rowers' time with 
measured song, 

And when the faint Corinthian hills were red 

Dropped anchor in a little sandy bay, 
And with fresh boughs of olive crowned his head, 

And brushed from cheek and throat the hoary spray, 
And washed his limbs with oil, and from the hold 
Brought out his linen tunic and his sandals brazen-soled, 

107 



108 CHARMIDES 

And a rich robe stained with the fishes' juice 
Which of some swarthy trader he had bought 

Upon the sunny quay at Syracuse, 

And was with Tyrian broideries inwrought, 

And by the questioning merchants made his way 

Up through the soft and silver woods, and when the 
labouring day 

Had spun its tangled web of crimson cloud, 
Clomb the high hill, and with swift silent feet 

Crept to the fane unnoticed by the crowd 
Of busy priests, and from some dark retreat 

Watched the young swains his frolic playmates bring 

The firstling of their little flock, and the shy shepherd 
fling 

The crackling salt upon the flame, or hang 
His studded crook against the temple wall 

To Her who keeps away the ravenous fang 

Of the base wolf from homestead and from stall; 

And then the clear-voiced maidens 'gan to sing, 

And to the altar each man brought some goodly offering, 

A beechen cup brimming with milky foam, 
A fair cloth wrought with cunning imagery 

Of hounds in chase, a waxen honey-comb 

Dripping with oozy gold which scarce the bee 

Had ceased from building, a black skin of oil 

Meet for the wrestlers, a great boar the fierce and white- 
tusked spoil 



CHARMIDES 109 

i 

Stolen from Artemis that jealous maid 

To please Athena, and the dappled hide 
Of a tall stag who in some mountain glade 

Had met the shaft; and then the herald cried, 
And from the pillared precinct one by one 
Went the glad Greeks well pleased that they their simple 
vows had done. 

And the old priest put out the waning fires 

Save that one lamp whose restless ruby glowed 

For ever in the cell, and the shrill lyres 

Came fainter on the wind, as down the road 

In joyous dance these country folk did pass, 

And with stout hands the warder closed the gates of 
polished brass. 

Long time he lay and hardly dared to breathe, 
And heard the cadenced drip of spilt-out wine, 

And the rose-petals falling from the wreath 

As the night breezes wandered through the shrine, 

And seemed to be in some entranced swoon 

Till through the open roof above the full and brimming 
moon 

Flooded with sheeny waves the marble floor, 

When from his nook upleapt the venturous lad, 

And flinging wide the cedar-carven door 
Beheld an awful image saffron-clad 

And armed for battle ! the gaunt Griffin glared 

From the huge helm, and the long lance of wreck and 
ruin flared 



110 CHARMIDES 

Like a red rod of flame, stony and steeled 

The Gorgon's head its leaden eyeballs rolled, 

And writhed its snaky horrors through the shield, 
And gaped aghast with bloodless lips and cold 

In passion impotent, while with blind gaze 

The blinking owl between the feet hooted in shrill amaze. 

The lonely fisher as he trimmed his lamp 

Far out at sea off Sunium, or cast 
The net for tunnies, heard a brazen tramp 

Of horses smite the waves, and a wild blast 
Divide the folded curtains of the night, 
And knelt upon the little poop, and prayed in holy 
fright. 

And guilty lovers in their venery 

Forgat a little while their stolen sweets, 

Deeming they heard dread Dian's bitter cry; 
And the grim watchmen on their lofty seats 

Ran to their shields in haste precipitate, 

Or strained black-bearded throats across the dusky par- 
apet. 

For round the temple rolled the clang of arms, 
And the twelve Gods leapt up in marble fear, 

Arid the air quaked with dissonant alarums 
Till huge Poseidon shook his mighty spear, 

And on the frieze the prancing horses neighed, 

And the low tread of hurrying feet rang from the cav- 
alcade. 



CHARMIDES 111 

Ready for death with parted lips he stood, 

And well content at such a price to see 
That calm wide brow, that terrible maidenhood, 

The marvel of that pitiless chastity, 
Ah ! well content indeed, for never wight 
Since Troy's young shepherd prince had seen so won- 
derful a sight. 

Ready for death he stood, but lo ! the air 
Grew silent, and the horses ceased to neigh, 

And off his brow he tossed the clustering hair, 
And from his limbs he threw the cloak away, 

For whom would not such love make desperate, 

And nigher came, and touched her throat, and with 
hands violate 

Undid the cuirass, and the crocus gown, 
And bared the breasts of polished ivory, 

Till from the waist the peplos falling down 
Left visible the secret mystery 

Which to no lover will Athena show, 

The grand cool flanks, the crescent thighs, the bossy 
hills of snow. 

[Those who have never known a lover's sin 

Let them not read my ditty, it will be 
To their dull ears so musicless and thin 

That they will have no joy of it, but ye 
To whose wan cheeks now creeps the lingering smile, 
Ye who have learned who Eros is, — O listen yet awhile.] 



112 CHARMIDES 

A little space he let his greedy eyes 

Rest on the burnished image, till mere sight 

Half swooned for surfeit of such luxuries, 
And then his lips in hungering delight 

Fed on her lips, and round the towered neck 

He flung his arms, nor cared at all his passion's will to 
check. 

Never I ween did lover hold such tryst, 

For all night long he murmured honeyed word, 

And saw her sweet unravished limbs, and kissed 
Her pale and argent body undisturbed, 

And paddled with the polished throat, and pressed 

His hot and beating heart upon her chill and icy breast. 

It was as if Numidian javelins 

Pierced through and through his wild and whirling 
brain, 
And his nerves thrilled like throbbing violins 

In exquisite pulsation, and the pain 
Was such sweet anguish that he never drew 
His lips from hers till overhead the lark of warning flew. 

[They who have never seen the daylight peer 
Into a darkened room, and drawn the curtain, 
# And with dull eyes and wearied from some dear 

And worshipped body risen, they for certain 
Will never know of what I try to sing, 
How long the last kiss was, how fond and late his linger- 
ing.] 



CHARMIDES 113 

The moon was girdled with a crystal rim, 
The sign which shipmen say is ominous 

Of wrath in heaven, the wan stars were dim, 
And the lrw lightening east was tremulous 

With the faint fluttering wings of flying dawn, 

Ere from the silent sombre shrine this lover had with- 
drawn. 

Down the steep rock with hurried feet and fast 
Clomb the brave lad, and reached the cave of Pan, 

And heard the goat-foot snoring as he passed, 
And leapt upon a grassy knoll and ran 

Like a young fawn unto an olive wood 

Which in a shady valley by the well-built city stood. 

And sought a little stream, which well he knew, 
For oftentimes with boyish careless shout 

The green and crested grebe he would pursue, 
Or snare in woven net the silver trout, 

And down amid the startled reeds he lay 

Panting in breathless sweet affright, and Avaited for the 
day. 

On the green bank he lay, and let one hand 

Dip in the cool dark eddies listlessly, 
And soon the breath of morning came and fanned 

His hot flushed cheeks, or lifted wantonly 
The tangled curls from off his forehead, while 
He on the running water gazed with strange and secret 
smile. 



114 CHARMIDES 

And soon the shepherd in rough woollen cloak 
With his long crook undid the wattled cotes, 

And from the stack a thin blue wreath of smoke 
Curled through the air across the ripening oats, 

And on the hill the yellow house-dog bayed 

As through the crisp and rustling fern the heavy cattle 
strayed. 

And when the light-foot mower went afield 
Across the meadows laced with threaded dew, 

And the sheep bleated on the misty weald, 

And from its nest the waking corn-crake flew, 

Some woodmen saw him lying by the stream 

And marvelled much that any lad so beautiful could 
seem, 

Nor deemed him born of mortals, and one said, 
"It is young Hylas, that false runaway 

Who with a Naiad now would make his bed 
Forgetting Herakles," but others, "Nay, 

It is Narcissus, his own paramour, 

Those are the fond and crimson lips no woman can 
allure." 

And when they nearer came a third one cried, 

"It is young Dionysos who has hid 
His spear and fawnskin by the river side 

Weary of hunting with the Bassarid, 
And wise indeed were we away to fly 
They live not long who on the gods immortal come to 

spy" 



CHARMIDES 115 

So turned they back, and feared to look behind, 
And told the timid swain how they had seen 

Amid the reeds some woodland God reclined, 
And no man dared to cross the open green, 

And on that day no olive-tree was slain, 

Nor rushes cut, but all deserted was the fair domain. 

Save when the neat-herd's lad, his empty pail 
Well slung upon his back, with leap and bound 

Raced on the other side, and stopped to hail 
Hoping that he some comrade new had found, 

And gat no answer, and then half afraid 

Passed on his simple way, or down the still and silent 
glade 

A little girl ran laughing from the farm 

Not thinking of love's secret mysteries, 
And when she saw the white and gleaming arm 

And all his manlihood, with longing eyes 
Whose passion mocked her sweet virginity 
Watched him awhile, and then stole back sadry and 
wearily. 

Far off he heard the city's hum and noise, 

And now and then the shriller laughter where 

The passionate purity of brown-limbed boys 
Wrestled or raced in the clear healthful air, 

And now and then a little tinkling bell 

As the shorn wether led the sheep down to the mossy 
well. 



116 CHARMIDES 

Through the grey willows danced the fretful gnat, 
The grasshopper chirped idly from the tree, 

In sleek and oily coat the water-rat 
Breasting the little ripples manfully 

Made for the wild-duck's nest, from bough to bough 

Hopped the shy finch, and the huge tortoise crept across 
the slough. 

On the faint wind floated the silky seeds 

As the bright scythe swept through the waving grass, 
The ousel-cock splashed circles in the reeds 

And flecked with silver whorls the forest's glass. 
Which scarce had caught again its imagery 
Ere from its bed the dusky tench leapt at the dragon-fly. 

But little care had he for any thing 

Though up and down the beech the squirrel played, 
And from the copse the linnet 'gan to sing 

To her brown mate her sweetest serenade, 
Ah ! little care indeed, for he had seen 
The breasts of Pallas and the naked wonder of the Queen. 

But when the herdsman called his straggling goats 

With whistling pipe across the rocky road, 
And the shard-beetle with its trumpet-notes 

Boomed through the darkening woods, and seemed to 
bode 
Of coming storm, and the belated crane 
Passed homeward like a shadow, and the dull big drops 
- of rain 



CHARMIDES 117 

Fell on the pattering fig-leaves, up he rose, 
And from the gloomy forest went his way 

Passed sombre homestead and wet orchard-close, 
And came at last unto a little quay, 

And called his mates aboard, and took his seat 

On the high poop, and pushed from land, and loosed the 
dripping sheet, 

And steered across the bay, and when nine suns 
Passed down the long and laddered way of gold, 

And nine pale moons had breathed their orisons 
To the chaste stars their confessors, or told 

Their dearest secret to the downy moth 

That will not fly at noonday, through the foam and 
surging froth 

Came a great owl with yellow sulphurous eyes 
And lit upon the ship, whose timbers creaked 

As though the lading of three argosies 

Were in the hold, and flapped its wings, and shrieked, 

And darkness straightway stole across the deep, 

Sheathed was Orion's sword, dread Mars himself fled 
down the steep, 

And the moon hid behind a tawny mask 

Of drifting cloud, and from the ocean's marge 

Rose the red plume, the huge and homed casque, 
The seven-cubit spear, the brazen targe! 

And clad in bright and burnished panoply 

Athena strode across the stretch of sick and shivering 



118 CHARMIDES 

To the dull sailors' sight her loosened locks 
Seemed like the jagged storm- rack, and her feet 

Only the spume that floats on hidden rocks, 
And, marking how the rising waters beat 

Against the rolling ship, the pilot cried 

To the young helmsman at the stern to luff to windward 
side. 

But he, the overbold adulterer, 

A dear profaner of great mysteries, 
An ardent amorous idolater, 

When he beheld those grand relentless eyes 
Laughed loud for joy, and crying out "I come" 
Leapt from the lofty poop into the chill and churning 
foam. 

Then fell from the high heaven one bright star, 

One dancer left the circling galaxy, 
And back to Athens on her clattering car 

In all the pride of venged divinity 
Pale Pallas swept with shrill and steely clank, 
And a few gurgling bubbles rose where her boy lover 
sank. 

And the mast shuddered as the gaunt owl flew 
With mocking hoots after the wrathful Queen, 

And the old pilot bade the trembling crew 
Hoist the big sail, and told how he had seen 

Close to the stern a dim and giant form, 

And like a dipping swallow the stout ship dashed 
, through the storm. 



CHARMIDES 119 

And no man dared to speak of Charmides, 

Deeming that he some evil thing had wrought, 

And when they reached the strait Symplegades 

They beached their galley on the shore, and sought 

The toll-gate of the city hastily, 

And in the market showed their brown and pictured 
pottery. 



120 CHARMIDES 



II 

BUT some good Triton-god had ruth, and bare 
The boy's drowned body back to Grecian land, 
And mermaids combed his dank and dripping hair 

And smoothed his brow, and loosed his clenching 
hand, 
Some brought sweet spices from far Araby, 
And others bade the halcyon sing her softest lullaby. 

And when he neared his old Athenian home, 

A mighty billow rose up suddenly 
Upon whose oily back the clotted foam 

Lay diapered in some strange phantasy, 
And clasping him unto its glassy breast, 
Swept landward, like a white-maned steed upon a ven- 
turous quest ! 

Now where Colonos leans unto the sea 

There lies a long and level stretch of lawn, 

The rabbit knows it, and the mountain bee 
For it deserts Hymettus, and the Faun 

Is not afraid, for never through the day 

Comes a cry ruder than the shout of shepherd lads at 
- play. 



CHARMIDES 121 

But often from the thorny labyrinth 

And tangled branches of the circling wood 

The stealthy hunter sees young Hyacinth 

Hurling the polished disk, and draws his hood 

Over his guilty gaze, and creeps away, 

Nor dares to wind his horn, or — else at the first break 
of day 

The Dryads come and throw the leathern ball 
Along the reedy shore, and circumvent 

Some goat-eared Pan to be their seneschal 
For fear of bold Poseidon's ravishment, 

And loose their girdles, with shy timorous eyes, 

Lest from the surf his azure arms and purple beard 
should rise. 

On this side and on that a rocky cave, 

Hung with the yellow-bell'd laburnum, stands, 

Smooth is the beach, save where some ebbing wave 
Leaves its faint outline etched upon the sands, 

As though it feared to be too soon forgot 

By the green rush, its playfellow, — and yet, it is a spot 

So small, that the inconstant butterfly 

Could steal the hoarded honey from each flower 

Ere it was noon, and still not satisfy 
Its over-greedy love, — within an hour 

A sailor-boy, were he but rude enow 

To land and pluck a garland for his galley's painted 
prow, 



122 CHARMIDES 

Would almost leave the little meadow bare, 
For it knows nothing 1 of great pageantry, 

Only a few narcissi here and there 
Stand separate in sweet austerity, 

Dotting the unmown grass with silver stars, 

And here and there a daffodil waves tiny scimitars. 

Hither the billow brought him, and was glad 
Of such dear servitude, and where the land 

Was virgin of all waters laid the lad 
Upon the golden margent of the strand, 

And like a lingering lover oft returned 

To kiss those pallid limbs which once with intense fire 
burned, 

Ere the wet seas had quenched that holocaust, 
That self-fed flame, that passionate lustihead, 

Ere grisly death with chill and nipping frost 
Had withered up those lilies white and red 

Which, while the boy would through the forest range, 

Answered each other in a sweet antiphonal counter- 
change. 

And when at dawn the wood-nymphs, hand-in-hand, 
Threaded the bosky dell, their satyr spied 

The boy's pale body stretched upon the sand, 
And feared Poseidon's treachery, and cried, 

And like bright sunbeams flitting through a glade, 

Each startled Dryad sought some safe and leafy ambus- 
cade. 



CHARMIDES 123 

Save one white girl, who deemed it would not be 
So dread a thing to feel a sea-god's arms 

Crushing her breasts in amorous tyranny, 
And longed to listen to those subtle charms 

Insidious lovers weave when they would win 

Some fenced fortress, and stole back again, nor thought 
it sin 

To yield her treasure unto one so fair, 

And lay beside him, thirsty with love's drouth, 

Called him soft names, played with his tangled hair, 
And with hot lips made havoc of Ins mouth, 

Afraid he might not wake, and then afraid 

Lest he might wake too soon, fled back, and then, fond 
renegade, 

Returned to fresh assault, and all day long 
Sat at his side, and laughed at her new toy, 

And held his hand, and sang her sweetest song, 
Then frowned to see how froward was the boy 

Who would not with her maidenhood entwine, 

Nor knew that three days since his eyes had looked on 
Proserpine, 

Nor knew what sacrilege his lips had done, 
But said, "He will awake, I know him well, 

He will awake at evening when the sun 

Hangs his red shield on Corinth's citadel, 

This sleep is but a cruel treachery 

To make me love him more, and in some cavern of the 
sea 



124 CHARMIDES 

Deeper than ever falls the fisher's line 
Already a huge Triton blows his horn, 

And weaves a garland from the crystalline 
And drifting ocean-tendrils to adorn 

The emerald pillars of our bridal bed, 

For sphered in foaming silver, and with coral-crowned 
head, 

We two will sit upon a throne of pearl, 

And a blue wave will be our canopy, 
And at our feet the water-snakes will curl 

In all their amethystine panoply 
Of diamonded mail, and we will mark 
The mullets swimming by the mast of some storm-foun- 
dered bark, 

Vermilion-finned with eyes of bossy gold 

Like flakes of crimson light, and the great deep 

His glassy-portaled chamber will unfold, 
And we will see the painted dolphins sleep 

Cradled by murmuring halcyons on the rocks 

Where Proteus in quaint suit of green pastures his mon- 
strous flocks. 

And tremulous opal-huect anemones 

Will wave their purple fringes where we tread 
Upon the mirrored floor, and argosies 

Of fishes flecked with tawny scales will thread 
The drifting cordage of the shattered wreck, 
And honey-coloured amber beads our twining limbs will 
deck." 



CHARMIDES 125 

But when that baffled Lord of War the Sun 
With gaudy pennon flying passed away 

Into his brazen House, and one by one 
The little yellow stars began to stray 

Across the field of heaven, ah ! then indeed 

She feared his lips upon her lips would never care to 
feed, 

And cried, "Awake, already the pale moon 
Washes the trees with silver, and the wave 

Creeps grey and chilly up this sandy dune, 
The croaking frogs are out, and from the cave 

The night-jar shrieks, the fluttering bats repass, 

And the brown stoat with hollow flanks creeps through 
the dusky grass. 

Nay, though thou art a God, be not so coy, 

For in yon stream there is a little reed 
That often whispers how a lovely boy 

Lay with her once upon a grassy mead, 
Who when his cruel pleasure he had done 
Spread wings of rustling gold and soared aloft into the 
sun. 

Be not so coy, the laurel trembles still 
With great Apollo's kisses, and the fir 

Whose clustering sisters fringe the seaward hill 
Hath many a tale of that bold ravisher 

Whom men call Boreas, and I have seen 

The mocking eyes of Hermes through the poplar's sil- 



very sheen. 



126 CHARMIDES 

Even the jealous Naiads call me fair, 

And every morn a young and ruddy swain 

Woos me with apples and with locks of hair, 
And seeks to soothe my virginal disdain 

By all the gifts the gentle wood-nymphs love; 

But yesterday he brought to me an iris-plumaged dove 

With little crimson feet, which with its store 

Of seven spotted eggs the cruel lad 
Had stolen from the lofty sycamore 

At daybreak, when her amorous comrade had 
Flown off in search of berried juniper 
Which most they love; the fretful wasp, that earliest 
vintager 

Of the blue grapes, hath not persistency 

So constant as this simple shepherd-boy 
For my poor lips, his joyous purity 

And laughing sunny eyes might well decoy 
A Dryad from her oath to Artemis ; 
For very beautiful is he, his mouth was made to kiss, 

His argent forehead, like a rising moon 

Over the dusky hills of meeting brows, 
Is' crescent-shaped, the hot and Tyrian noon 

Leads from the myrtle-grove no goodlier spouse 
For Cythera?a, the first silky down 
Fringes his blushing cheeks, and his young limbs are 
strong and brown : 



CHARMIDES 127 

And he is rich, and fat and fleecy herds 
Of bleating sheep upon his meadows lie, 

And many an earthen bowl of yellow curds 
Is in his homestead for the thievish fly 

To swim and drown in, the pink clover mead 

Keeps its sweet store for him, and he can pipe on oaten 
reed. 

And yet I love him not, it was for thee 

I kept my love, I knew that thou would'st come 

To rid me of this pallid chastity ; 

Thou fairest flower of the flowerless foam 

Of all the wide JEgean, brightest star 

Of ocean's azure heavens where the mirrored planets are ! 

I knew that thou would'st come, for when at first 
The dry wood burgeoned, and the sap of Spring 

Swelled in ray green and tender bark or burst 
To myriad multitudinous blossoming 

Which mocked the midnight with its mimic moons 

That did not dread the dawn, and first the thrushes' rap- 
turous tunes 

Startled the squirrel from its granary, 

And cuckoo flowers fringed the narrow lane, 

Through my young leaves a sensuous ecstasy 
Crept like new wine, and every mossy vein 

Throbbed with the fitful pulse of amorous blood, 

And the wild winds of passion shook my slim stem's 
maidenhood. 



128 CHARMIDES 

The trooping fawns at evening came and laid 
Their cool black noses on my lowest boughs, 

And on my topmost branch the blackbird made 
A little nest of grasses for his spouse, 

And now and then a twittering wren would light 

On a thin twig which hardly bare the weight of such 
delight. 

I was the Attic shepherd's trysting-place, 

Beneath my shadow Amaryllis lay, 
And round my trunk would laughing Daphnis chase 

The timorous girl, till tired out with play 
She felt his hot breath stir her tangled hair, 
And turned, and looked, and fled no more from such 
delightful snare. 

Then come away unto my ambuscade 

Where clustering woodbine weaves a canopy 

For amorous pleasaunce, and the rustling shade 
Of Paphian myrtles seems to sanctify 

The dearest rites of love, there in the cool 

And green recesses of its farthest depth there is a pool, 

The ouzel's haunt, the wild bee's pasturage, 
For round its rim great creamy lilies float 

Through their flat leaves in verdant anchorage, 
Each cup a white-sailed golden-laden boat 

Steered by a dragon-fly, — be not afraid 

To leave this wan and wave-kissed shore, surely the place 
was made 



CHARMIDES 129 

For lovers such as we, the Cyprian Queen, 

One arm around her boyish paramour, 
Strays often there at eve, and I have seen 

The moon strip off her misty vestiture 
For young 1 Endymion's eyes, be not afraid, 
The panther feet of Dian never tread that secret glade. 

Nay if thou will'st, back to the beating brine, 
Back to the boisterous billow let us go, 

And walk all day beneath the hyaline 

Huge vault of Neptune's watery portico, 

And watch the purple monsters of the deep 

Sport in ungainly play, and from his lair keen Xiphias 
leap. 

For if my mistress find me lying here 

She will not ruth or gentle pity show, 
But lay her boar-spear down, and with austere 

Relentless fingers string the cornel bow, 
And draw the feathered notch against her breast, 
And loose the arched cord, ay, even now upon the 
quest 

I hear her hurrying feet, — awake, awake, 

Thou laggard in love's battle! once at least 

Let me drink deep of passion's wine, and slake 
My parched being with the nectarous feast 

Which even Gods affect! O come Love come, 

Still we have time to reach the cavern of thine azure 
home." 



130 CHARMIDES 

Scarce had she spoken when the shuddering trees 
Shook, and the leaves divided, and the air 

Grew conscious of a God, and the grey seas 

Crawled backward, and a long and dismal blare 

Blew from some tasselled horn, a sleuth-hound bayed, 

And like a flame a barbed reed flew whizzing down the 
glade. 

And where the little flowers of her breast 

Just brake into their milky blossoming, 
This murderous paramour, this unbidden guest, 

Pierced and struck deep in horrid chambering, 
And ploughed a bloody furrow with its dart, 
And dug a long red road, and cleft with winged death 
her heart. 

Sobbing her life out with a bitter cry 

On the boy's body fell the Dryad maid, 
Sobbing for incomplete virginity, 

And raptures unenjoyed, and pleasures dead 
And all the pain of things unsatisfied, 
And the bright drops of crimson youth crept down her 
throbbing side. 

Ah ! pitiful it was to hear her moan, 

And very pitiful to see her die 
Ere she had yielded up her sweets, or known 

The joy of passion, that dread mystery 
Which not to know is not to live at all, 
And yet to know is to be held in death's most deadly 
thrall. 



CHARMIDES 131 

But as it hapt the Queen of Cythere, 

Who with Adonis all night long had lain 

Within some shepherd's hut in Arcady, 
On team of silver doves and gilded wain 

Was journeying Paphos-ward, high up afar 

From mortal ken between the mountains and the morn- 
ing star, 

And when low down she spied the hapless pair, 
And heard the Oread's faint despairing cry, 

Whose cadence seemed to play upon the air 
As though it were a viol, hastily 

She bade her pigeons fold each straining plume, 

And dropt to earth, and reached the strand, and saw 
their dolorous doom. 

For as a gardener turning back his head 
To catch the last notes of the linnet, mows 

With careless scythe too near some flower-bed, 
And cuts the thorny pillar of the rose, 

And with the flower's loosened loveliness 

Strews the brown mould, or as some shepherd lad in wan- 
tonness 

Driving his little flock along the mead 

Treads down two daffodils which side by side 

Have lured the lady-bird with yellow brede 
And made the gaudy moth forget its pride, 

Treads down their brimming golden chalices 

Under light feet which were not made for such rude 
ravages, 



132 CHARMIDES 

Or as a schoolboy tired of his book 

Flings himself down upon the reedy grass 

And plucks two water-lilies from the brook, 
And for a time forgets the hour glass, 

Then wearies of their sweets, and goes his way, 

And lets the hot sun kill them, even so these lovers 
lay. 

And Venus cried, "It is dread Artemis 

Whose bitter hand hath wrought this cruelty, 

Or else that mightier maid whose care it is 
To guard her strong and stainless majesty 

Upon the hill Athenian, — alas ! 

That they who loved so well unloved into Death's house 
should pass." 

So with soft hands she laid the boy and girl 

In the great golden waggon tenderly, 
Her white throat whiter than a moony pearl 

Just threaded with a' blue vein's tapestry 
Had not yet ceased to throb, and still her breast 
Swayed like a wind-stirred lily in ambiguous unrest. 

And then each pigeon spread its milky van, 
The bright car soared into the dawning sky, 

And like a cloud the aerial caravan 
Passed over the iEgean silently, 

Till the faint air was troubled with the song 

From the wan mouths that call on bleeding Thammuz 
all night long. 



CHARMIDES 133 

But when the doves had reached their wonted goal 
Where the wide stair of orbed marble dips 

Its snows into the sea, her fluttering soul 
Just shook the trembling petals of her lips 

And passed into the void, and Venus knew 

That one fair maid the less would walk amid her retinue. 

And bade her servants carve a cedar chest 

With all the wonder of this history, 
Within whose scented womb their limbs should rest 

Where olive-trees make tender the blue sky 
On the low hills of Paphos, and the faun 
Pipes in the noonday, and the nightingale sings on till 
dawn. 

Nor failed they to obey her hest, and ere 

The morning bee had stung the daffodil 
With tiny fretful spear, or from its lair 

The waking stag had leapt across the rill 
And roused the ouzel, or the lizard crept 
Athwart the sunny rock, beneath the grass their bodies 
slept. 

And when day brake, within that silver shrine 
Fed by the flames of cressets tremulous, 

Queen Venus knelt and prayed to Proserpine 
That she whose beauty made Death amorous 

Should beg a guerdon from her pallid Lord, 

And let Desire pass across dread Charon's icy ford- 



134 CHARMIDES 



III 

IN melancholy moonless Acheron, 
Far from the goodly earth and joyous day, 
Where no spring ever buds, nor ripening sun 

Weighs down the apple-trees, nor flowery May 
Chequers with chestnut blooms the grassy floor, 
Where thrushes never sing, and piping linnets mate no 
more, 

There by a dim and dark Lethaean well 

Young Charmides was lying, wearily 
He plucked the blossoms from the asphodel, 

And with its little rifled treasury 
Strewed the dull waters of the dusky stream, 
And watched the white stars founder, and the land was 
like a dream, 

When as he gazed into the watery glass 

And through his brown hair's curly tangles scanned 

His own wan face, a shadow seemed to pass 
Across the mirror, and a little hand 

Stole into his, and warm lips timidly 

Brushed his pale cheeks, and breathed their secret forth 
' into a sigh. 



CHARMIDES 135 

Then turned he round his weary eyes and saw, 

And ever nigher still their faces came, 
And nigher ever did their young mouths draw 

Until they seemed one perfect rose of flame, 
And longing arms around her neck he cast, 
And felt her throbbing bosom, and his breath came hot 
and fast, 

And all his hoarded sweets were hers to kiss, 
And all her maidenhood was his to slay, 

And limb to limb in long and rapturous bliss 
Their passion waxed and waned, — O why essay 

To pipe again of love too venturous reed ! 

Enough, enough that Eros laughed upon that flowerless 
mead. 

Too venturous poesy O why essay 

To pipe again of passion! fold thy wings 

O'er daring Icarus and bid thy lay 

Sleep hidden in the lyre's silent strings, 

Till thou hast found the old Castalian rill, 

Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho's 
golden quill! 

Enough, enough that he whose life had been 
A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame, 

Could in the loveless land of Hades glean 

One scorching harvest from those fields of flame 

Where passion walks with naked unshod feet 

And is not wounded, — ah! enough that once their lips 
could meet 



136 CHARMIDES 

In that wild throb when all existences 

Seemed narrowed to one single ecstasy 
Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress 

Of too much pleasure, ere Persephone 
Had bade them serve her by the ebon throne 
Of the pale God who in the fields of Enna loosed her 
zone. 



FLOWERS OF GOLD 



IMPRESSIONS 

I 

LES SILHOUETTES 

THE sea is flecked with bars of grey, 
The dull dead wind is out of tune, 
And like a withered leaf the moon 
Is blown across the stormy bay 

Etched clear upon the pallid sand 
Lies the black boat: a sailor boy 
Clambers aboard in careless joy 
With laughing face and gleaming hand. 

And overhead the curlews cry, 
Where through the dusky upland grass 
The young brown-throated reapers pass, 
Like silhouettes against the sky. 



139 



140 FLOWERS OF GOLD 



n 

LA FUITE DE LA LUNE 



T 



10 outer senses there is peace, 

A dreamy peace on either hand, 
Deep silence in the shadowy land, 
Deep silence where the shadows cease. 



Save for a cry that echoes shrill 
From some lone bird disconsolate; 
A corncrake calling to its mate; 
The answer from the misty hill. 

And suddenly the moon withdraws 
Her sickle from the lightening skies, 
And to her sombre cavern flies, 
Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze. 



FLOWERS OF GOLD 141 



THE GRAVE OF KEATS 

RID of the world's injustice, and his pain, 
He rests at last beneath God's veil of blue: 

Taken from life when life and love were new 
The youngest of the martyrs here is lain, 
Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain. 

No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew, 

But gentle violets weeping with the dew 
Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain. 
O proudest heart that broke for misery ! 

O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene! 

O poet-painter of our English Land! 
Thy name was writ in water — it shall stand: 

And tears like mine will keep thy memory green, 

As Isabella did her Basil-tree. 

Rome. 



142 FLOWERS OF GOLD 



THEOCRITUS 

A VILLANELLE 

O SINGER of Persephone! 
In the dim meadows desolate 
Dost thou remember Sicily? 

Still through the ivy flits the bee 
Where Amaryllis lies in state; 
O Singer of Persephone! 

Simaetha calls on Hecate 

And hears the wild dogs at the gate; 
Dost thou remember Sicily? 

Still by the light and laughing sea 

Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate: 
O Singer of Persephone! 

And still in boyish rivalry 

Young Daphnis challenges his mate: 
Dost thou remember Sicily? 

Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee, 

For thee the jocund shepherds wait, 
O Singer of Persephone! 
Dost thou remember Sicily? 



FLOWERS OF GOLD 143 



IN THE GOLD ROOM 

A HARMONY 

HER ivory hands on the ivory keys 
Strayed in a fitful fantasy, 
Like the silver gleam when the poplar-trees 
Rustled their pale leaves listlessly, 
Or the drifting foam of a restless sea 
When the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze. 

Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold 
Like the delicate gossamer tangles spun 

On the burnished disk of the marigold, 
Or the sunflower turning to meet the sun 
When the gloom of the dark blue night is done, 

And the spear of the lily is aureoled. 

And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine 
Burned like the ruby fire set 

In the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine, 
Or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate, 
Or the heart of the lotus drenched and wet 

With the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine. 



144 FLOWERS OF GOLD 



I 



BALLADE DE MARGUERITE 

(normande) 

AM weary of lying within the chase 
When the knights are meeting in market-place. 



Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed town 

Lest the hooves of the war-horse tread thee down. 

But I would not go where the Squires ride, 
I would only walk by my Lady's side. 

Alack ! and alack ! thou art overbold, 
A Forester's son may not eat off gold. 

Will she love me the less that my Father is seen, 
Each Martinmas day in a doublet green? 

Perchance she is sewing at tapestrie, 
Spindle and loom are not meet for thee. 

Ah, if she is working the arras bright 
I might ravel the threads by the firelight. 

Perchance she is hunting of the deer, 
How could you follow o'er hill and mere? 



FLOWERS OF GOLD 145 

Ah, if she is riding with the court, 

I might run beside her and wind the morte. 

Perchance she is kneeling in St. Denys, 

(On her soul may our Lady have gramercy!) 

Ah, if she is praying in lone chapelle, 

I might swing the censer and ring the bell. 

Come in my son, for you look sae pale, 
The father shall fill thee a stoup of ale. 

But who are these knights in bright array? 
Is it a pageant the rich folks play? 

'Tis the King of England from over sea, 
Who has come unto visit our fair countrie. 

But why does the curfew toll sae low? 
And why do the mourners walk a-row? 

O 'tis Hugh of Amiens my sister's son 
Who is lying stark, for his day is done. 

Nay, nay, for I see white lilies clear, 
It is no strong man who lies on the bier. 

'tis old Dame Jeannette that kept the hall, 

1 knew she would die at the autumn fall. 



146 FLOWERS OF GOLD 

Dame Jeannette had not that gold-brown hair, 
Old Jeannette was not a maiden fair. 

O 'tis none of our kith and none of our kin, 
(Her soul may our Lady assoil from sin!) 

But I hear the boy's voice chaunting sweet, 
"Elle est morte, la Marguerite." 

Come in my son and lie on the bed, 
And let the dead folk bury their dead. 

O mother, you know I loved her true: 
O mother, hath one grave room for two? 



FLOWERS OF GOLD 147 

THE DOLE OF THE KING'S DAUGHTER 

( breton) 

SEVEN stars in the still water, 
And seven in the sky; 
Seven sins on the King's daughter, 
Deep in her soul to lie. 

Red roses are at her feet, 

(Roses are red in her red-gold hair) 
And O where her bosom and girdle meet 

Red roses are hidden there. 

Fair is the knight who lieth slain 

Amid the rush and reed, 
See the lean fishes that are fain 

Upon dead men to feed. 

Sweet is the page that lieth there, 
(Cloth of gold is goodly prey,) 

See the black ravens in the air, 

Black, O black as the night are they. 

What do they there so stark and dead? 

(There is blood upon her hand) 
Why are the lilies flecked with red? 

(There is blood on the river sand.) 



148 FLOWERS OF GOLD 

There are two that ride from the south and east, 

And two from the north and west, 
For the black raven a goodly feast, 

For the King's daughter rest. 

There is one man who loves her true, 
(Red, O red, is the stain of gore!) 

He hath duggen a grave by the darksome yew, 
(One grave will do for four.) 

No moon in the still heaven, 

In the black water none, 
The sins on her soul are seven, 

The sin upon his is one. 



FLOWERS OF GOLD 149 



AMOR INTELLECTUALS 

OFT have we trod the vales of Castaly 
And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown 

From antique reeds to common folk unknown: 
And often launched our bark upon that sea 
Which the nine Muses hold in empery, 

And ploughed free furrows through the wave and 
foam, 

Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe home 
Till we had freighted well our argosy. 
Of which despoiled treasures these remain, 

Sordello's passion, and the honied line 
Of young Endymion, lordly Tamburlaine 

Driving his pampered jades, and, more than these, 
The seven-fold vision of the Florentine, 

And grave-browed Milton's solemn harmonies. 



150 FLOWERS OF GOLD 



SANTA DECCA 

THE Gods are dead: no longer do we bring 
To grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves ! 
Demeter's child no more hath tithe of sheaves, 
And in the noon the careless shepherds sing, 
For Pan is dead, and all the wantoning 
By secret glade and devious haunt is o'er: 
Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more ; 
Great Pan is dead, and Mary's Son is King. 

And yet — perchance in this sea-tranced isle, 
Chewing the bitter fruit of memory, 
Some God lies hidden in the asphodel. 

Ah Love! if such there be then it were well 
For us to fly his anger: nay, but see 
The leaves are stirring: let us watch awhile. 

Corfu. 



FLOWERS OF GOLD 151 



A VISION 

TWO crowned Kings, and One that stood alone 
With no green weight of laurels round his head, 

But with sad eyes as one uncomforted, 
And wearied with man's never-ceasing moan 
For sins no bleating victim can atone, 

And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed. 

Girt was he in a garment black and red, 
And at his feet I marked a broken stone 

Which sent up lilies, dove-like, to his knees. 

Now at their sight, my heart being lit with flame 
I cried to Beatrice, "Who> are these?" 
And she made answer, knowing well each name, 

"iEschylus first, the second Sophokles, 

And last (wide stream of tears!) Euripides." 



152 FLOWERS OF GOLD 



IMPRESSION DE VOYAGE 

THE sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky 
Burned like a heated opal through the air; 
We hoisted sail ; the wind was blowing fair 

For the blue lands that to the eastward lie. 

From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye 
Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek, 
Ithaca's cliff, Lycaon's snowy peak, 

And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady. 

The flapping of the sail against the mast, 
The ripple of the water on the side, 
The ripple of girls' laughter at the stern, 

The only sounds : — when 'gan the West to burn, 
And a red sun upon the seas to ride, 
I stood upon the soil of Greece at last ! 

Katakolo. 



FLOWERS OF GOLD 153 



THE GRAVE OF SHELLEY 

LIKE burnt-out torches by a sick man's bed 
Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached 
stone ; 
Here doth the little night-owl make her throne, 
And the slight lizard show his jewelled head. 
And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red, 
In the still chamber of yon pyramid 
Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid, 
Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead. 

Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb 
Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep, 

But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb 
In the blue cavern of an echoing deep, 

Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom 

Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep. 

Rome. 



154 FLOWERS OF GOLD 



BY THE ARNO 

THE oleander on the wall 
Grows crimson in the dawning light, 
Though the grey shadows of the night 
Lie yet on Florence like a pall. 

The dew is bright upon the hill, 
And bright the blossoms overhead, 
But ah, the grasshoppers have fled, 
The little Attic song is still. 

Only the leaves are gently stirred 
By the soft breathing of the gale, 
And in the almond-scented vale 
The lonely nightingale is heard. 

The day will make thee silent soon, 
O nightingale sing on for love ! 
While yet upon the shadowy grove 
Splinter the arrows of the moon. 

Before across the silent lawn 
In sea-green vest the morning steals, 
And to love's frightened eyes reveals 
The long white fingers of the dawn 

Fast climbing up the eastern sky 
To grasp and slay the shuddering night, 
All careless of my heart's delight, 
Or if the nightingale should die. 



IMPRESSIONS DE THEATRE 



FABIEN DEI FRANCHI 

To My Friend Henry Irving 

THE silent room, the heavy creeping shade, 
The dead that travel fast, the opening door, 
The murdered brother rising through the floor, 

The ghost's white fingers on my shoulders laid, 

And then the lonely duel in the glade, 

The broken swords, the stifled scream, the gore, 
Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is o'er, — 

These things are well enough, — but thou wert made 
For more august creation ! frenzied Lear 
Should at thy bidding wander on the heath 
With the shrill fool to mock him, Romeo 

For thee should lure his love, and desperate fear 

Pluck Richard's recreant dagger from its sheath — 
Thou trumpet set for Shakespeare's lips to blow ! 



157 



158 IMPRESSIONS DE THEATRE 



PHEDRE 



To Sarah Bernhardt 

T T OW vain and dull this common world must seem 

* ■*■ To such a One as thou, who should'st have talked 
At Florence with Mirandola, or walked 

Through the cool olives of the Academe: 

Thou should'st have gathered reeds from a green stream 
For Goat-foot Pan's shrill piping, and have played 
With the white girls in that Phaeacian glade 

Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream. 

Ah ! surely once some urn of Attic clay 

Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again 
Back to this common world so dull and vain, 

For thou wert weary of the sunless day, 
The heavy fields of scentless asphodel, 
The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell. 



IMPRESSIONS DE THEATRE 159 



SONNETS WRITTEN AT THE LYCEUM 
THEATRE 



PORTIA 

To Ellen Terry 

MARVEL not Bassanio was so bold 
■■■ To peril all he had upon the lead, 

Or that proud Aragon bent low his head, 
Or that Morocco's fiery heart grew cold : 
For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold 

Which is more golden that the golden sun, 

No woman Veronese looked upon 
Was half so fair as thou whom I behold. 
Yet fairer when with wisdom as your shield 

The sober-suited lawyer's gown you donned, 
And would not let the laws of Venice yield 

Antonio's heart to that accursed Jew — 

O Portia ! take my heart : it is thy due : 
I think I will not quarrel with the Bond. 



160 IMPRESSIONS DE THEATRE 



II 
QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA 

To Ellen Terry 

IN the lone tent, waiting for victory, 
She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain 3 

Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain: 
The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky, 
War's ruin, and the wreck of chivalry, 

To her proud soul no common fear can bring: 

Bravely she tarrieth for her Lord the King, 
Her soul a-flame with passionate ecstasy. 
O Hair of Gold ! O Crimson Lips ! O Face 

Made for the luring and the love of man ! 

With thee I do forget the toil and stress, 
The loveless road that knows no resting-place, 

Time's straitened pulse, the soul's dread weariness, 

My freedom, and my life republican ! 



IMPRESSIONS DE THEATRE 161 



CAMMA 

A S one who poring on a Grecian urn 

■*■ *■ Scans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made, 
God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid, 

And for their beauty's sake is loth to turn 

And face the obvious day, must I not yearn 
For many a secret moon of indolent bliss, 
When in the midmost shrine of Artemis 

I see thee standing, antique-limbed, and stern? 

And yet — methinks I'd rather see thee play 
That serpent of old Nile, whose witchery 

Made Emperors drunken, — come, great Egypt, shake 
Our stage with all thy mimic pageants ! Nay, 
I am grown sick of unreal passions, make 

The world thine Actium, me thine Antony ! 



PANTHEA 



PANTHEA 

NAY, let us walk from fire unto fire, 
From passionate pain to deadlier delight, — 
I am too young to live without desire, 

Too young art thou to waste this summer night 
Asking those idle questions which of old 
Man sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told. 

For, sweet, to feel is better than to know, 

And wisdom is a childless heritage, 
One pulse of passion — youth's first fiery glow, — 

Are worth the hoarded proverbs of the sage: 
Vex not thy soul with dead philosophy, 
Have we not lips to kiss with, hearts to love, and eyes to 



Dost thou not hear the murmuring nightingale 

Like water bubbling from a silver jar, 
So soft she sings the envious moon is pale, 
That high in heaven she is hung so far 
She cannot hear that love-enraptured tune, — 
Mark how she wreathes each horn with mist, yon late and 
labouring moon- 

165 



166 PANTHEA 

White lilies, in whose cups the gold bees dream, 
The fallen snow of petals where the breeze 

Scatters the chestnut blossom, or the gleam 
Of boyish limbs in water, — are not these 

Enough for thee, dost thou desire more? 

Alas ! the Gods will give nought else from their eternal 
store. 

For our high Gods have sick and wearied grown 
Of all our endless sins, our vain endeavour 

For wasted days of youth to make atone 

By pain or prayer or priest, and never, never, 

Hearken they now to either good or ill, 

But send their rain upon the just and the unjust at will. 

They sit at ease, our Gods they sit at ease, 
Strewing with leaves of rose their scented wine, 

They sleep, they sleep, beneath the rocking trees 
Where asphodel and yellow lotus twine, 

Mourning the old glad days before they knew 

What evil things the heart of man could dream, and 
dreaming do. 

And far beneath the brazen floor they see 
Like swarming flies the crowd of little men, 

The bustle of small lives, then wearily 

Back to their lotus-haunts they turn again 

Kissing each other's mouths, and mix more deep 

The poppy-seeded draught which brings soft purple- 
lidded sleep. 



PANTHEA 167 

There all day long the golden-vestured sun, 

Their torch-bearer, stands with his torch ablaze, 

And, when the gaudy web of noon is spun 

By its twelve maidens, through the crimson haze 

Fresh from Endymion's arms comes forth the moon, 

And the immortal Gods in toils of mortal passions swoon. 

There walks Queen Juno through some dewy mead, 
Her grand white feet flecked with the saffron dust 

Of wind-stirred lilies, while young Ganymede 
Leaps in the hot and amber-foaming must, 

His curls all tossed, as when the eagle bare 

The frightened boy from Ida through the blue Ionian air. 

There in the green heart of some garden close 
Queen Venus with the shepherd at her side, 

Her warm soft body like the brier rose 

Which would be white yet blushes at its pride, 

Laughs low for love, till jealous Salmacis 

Peers through the myrtle-leaves and sighs for pain of 
lonely bliss. 

There never does that dreary north-wind blow 
Which leaves our English forests bleak and bare, 

Nor ever falls the swift white-feathered snow, 
Nor ever doth the red-toothed lightning dare 

To wake them in the silver-fretted night 

When we lie weeping for some sweet sad sin, some dead 
delight. 



168 PANTHEA 

Alas ! they know the far Lethaean spring, 
The violet-hidden waters well they know, 

Where one whose feet with tired wandering 
Are faint and broken may take heart and go, 

And from those dark depths cool and crystalline 

Drink, and draw balm, and sleep for sleepless souls, and 
anodyne. 

But we oppress our natures, God or Fate 

Is our enemy, we starve and feed 
On vain repentance — O we are born too late ! 

What balm for us in bruised poppy seed 
Who crowd into one finite pulse of time 
The joy of infinite love and the fierce pain of infinite 
crime. 

O we are wearied of this sense of guilt, 
Wearied of pleasure's paramour despair, 

Wearied of every temple we have built, 

Wearied of every right, unanswered prayer, 

For man is weak ; God sleeps : and heaven is high : 

One fiery-coloured moment : one great love ; and lo ! we 
die. 

Ah ! but no ferry-man with labouring pole 

Nears his black shallop to the flowerless strand, 

No little coin of bronze can bring the soul 
Over Death's river to the sunless land, 

Victim and wine and vow are all in vain, 

The tomb is sealed ; the soldiers watch ; the dead rise not 
again. 



PANTHEA 169 

We are resolved into the supreme air, 

We are made one with what we touch and see, 

With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair, 

With our young lives each spring-impassioned tree 

Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range 

The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is 
change. 

With beat of systole and of diastole 

One grand great life throbs through earth's giant 
heart, 
And mighty waves of single Being roll 

From nerveless germ to man, for we are part 
Of every rock and bird and beast and hill, 
One with the things that prey on us, and one with what 
we kill. 

From lower cells of waking life we pass 

To full perfection ; thus the world grows old : 

We who are godlike now were once a mass 

Of quivering purple flecked with bars of gold, 

Unsentient or of joy or misery, 

And tossed in terrible tangles of some wild and wind- 
swept sea. 

This hot hard flame with which our bodies burn 
Will make some meadow blaze with daffodil, 

Ay ! and those argent breasts of thine will turn 
To water-lilies ; the brown fields men till 



170 PANTHEA 

Will be more fruitful for our love to-night, 
Nothing is lost in nature, all things live in Death's 
despite. 

The boy's first kiss, the hyacinth's first bell, 

The man's last passion, and the last red spear 

That from the lily leaps, the asphodel 

Which will not let its blossoms blow for fear 

Of too much beauty, and the timid shame 

Of the young bridegroom at his lover's eyes, — these 
with the same 

One sacrament are consecrate, the earth 

Not we alone hath passions hymeneal, 
The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth 

At daybreak know a pleasure not less real 
Than we do, when in some fresh-blossoming wood, 
We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is 
good. 

So when men bury us beneath the yew 

Thy crimson-stained mouth a rose will be, 

And thy soft eyes lush bluebells dimmed with dew, 
And when the white narcissus wantonly 

Kisses the wind its playmate some faint joy 

Will thrill our dust, and we will be again fond maid and 
boy. 

And thus without life's conscious torturing pain 
In some sweet flower we will feel the sun, 

And from the linnet's throat will sing again, 
And as two gorgeous-mailed snakes will run 



PANTHEA 171 

Over our graves, or as two tigers creep 
Through the hot jungle where the yellow-eyed huge lions 
sleep 

And give them battle! How my heart leaps up 
To think of that grand living after death 

In beast and bird and flower, when this cup, 
Being filled too full of spirit, bursts for breath, 

And with the pale leaves of some autumn day 

The soul earth's earliest conqueror becomes earth's last 
great prey. 

O think of it ! We shall inform ourselves 
Into all sensuous life, the goat-foot Faun, 

The Centaur, or the merry bright-eyed Elves 

That leave their dancing rings to spite the dawn 

Upon the meadows, shall not be more near 

Than you and I to nature's mysteries, for we shall hear 

The thrush's heart beat, and the daisies grow, 
And the wan snowdrop sighing for the sun 

On sunless days in winter, we shall know 
By whom the silver gossamer is spun, 

Who paints the diapered fritillaries, 

On what wide wings from shivering pine to pine the 
eagle flies. 

Ay ! had we never loved at all, who knows 

If yonder daffodil had lured the bee 
Into its gilded womb, or any rose 

Had hung with crimson lamps its little tree! 



172 PANTHEA 

Methinks no leaf would ever bud in spring, 

But for the lovers' lips that kiss, the poets' lips that sing. 

Is the light vanished from our golden sun, 
Or is this daedal-fashioned earth less fair, 

That we are nature's heritors, and one 

With every pulse of life that beats the air? 

Rather new suns across the sky shall pass, 

New splendour come unto the flower, new glory to the 
grass. 

And we two lovers shall not sit afar, 

Critics of nature, but the joyous sea 
Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star 

Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be 
Part of the mighty universal whole, 
And through all seons mix and mingle with the Kosmic 
Soul! 

We shall be notes in that great Symphony 

Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres, 

And all the live World's throbbing heart shall be 
One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years 

Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die, 

The Universe itself shall be our Immortality ! 



THE FOURTH MOVEMENT 



IMPRESSION 
LE REVEILLON 

THE sky is laced with fitful red, 
The circling mists and shadows flee, 
The dawn is rising from the sea, 
Like a white lady from her bed. 

And jagged brazen arrows fall 
Athwart the feathers of the night, 
And a long wave of yellow light 
Breaks silently on tower and hall, 

And spreading wide across the wold 
Wakes into flight some fluttering bird, 
And all the chestnut tops are stirred, 
And all the branches streaked with gold. 



175 



176 THE FOURTH MOVEMENT 



AT VERONA 

T TOW steep the stairs within Kings' houses are 
■1 -■- For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread, 

And O how salt and bitter is the bread 
Which falls from this Hound's table, — better far 
That I had died in the red ways of war, 

Or that the gate of Florence bare my head, 
Than to live thus, by all things comraded 
Which seek the essence of my soul to mar. 

"Curse God and die: what better hope than this? 
He hath forgotten thee in a^ 1 the bliss 
Of his gold city, and eternal day" — 

Nay peace: behind my prison's blinded bars 
I do possess what none can take away, 

My love, and all the glory of the stars. 



THE FOURTH MOVEMENT 177 



APOLOGIA 

T S it thy will that I should wax and wane, 
-*- Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey, 
And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain 

Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day? 

Is it thy will — Love that I love so well — 

That my Soul's House should be a tortured spot 

Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell 

The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not? 

Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure, 
And sell ambition at the common mart, 

And let dull failure be my vestiture, 

And sorrow dig its grave within my heart. 

Perchance it may be better so — at least 
I have not made my heart a heart of stone, 

Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast, 
Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown. 

Many a man hath done so ; sought to fence 
In straitened bonds the soul that should be free, 

Trodden the dusty road of common sense, 
While all the forest sang of liberty, 



178 THE FOURTH MOVEMENT 

Not marking how the spotted hawk in flight 
Passed on wide pinion through the lofty air, 

To where some steep untrodden mountain height 
Caught the last tresses of the Sun God's hair. 

Or how the little flower he trod upon, 

The daisy, that white-feathered shield of gold, 

Followed with wistful eyes the wandering sun 
Content if once its leaves were aureoled. 

But surely it is something to have been 

The best beloved for a little while, 
To have walked hand in hand with Love, and seen 

His purple wings flit once across thy smile. 

Ay! though the gorged asp of passion feed 
On my boy's heart, yet have I burst the bars, 

Stood face to face with Beauty, known indeed 
The Love which moves the Sun and all the stars ! 



THE FOURTH MOVEMENT 179 



QUIA MULTUM AMAVI 

DEAR Heart I think the young impassioned priest 
When first he takes from out the hidden shrine 
His God imprisoned in the Eucharist, 

And eats the bread, and drinks the dreadful wine, 

Feels not such awful wonder as I felt 

When first my smitten eyes beat full on thee, 

And all night long before thy feet I knelt 
Till thou wert wearied of Idolatry. 

Ah! had'st thou liked me less and loved me more, 
Through all those summer days of joy and rain, 

I had not now been sorrow's heritor, 

Or stood a lackey in the House of Pain. 

Yet, though remorse, youth's white- faced seneschal, 

Tread on my heels with all his retinue, 
I am most glad I loved thee — think of all 

The suns that go to make one speedwell blue ! 



180 THE FOURTH MOVEMENT 



SILENTIUM AMORIS 

AS oftentimes the too resplendent sun 
Hurries the pallid and reluctant moon 
Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won 
A single ballad from the nightingale, 
So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail, 
And all my sweetest singing out of tune. 

And as at dawn across the level mead 

On wings impetuous some wind will come, 

And with its too harsh kisses break the reed 
Which was its only instrument of song, 
So my too stormy passions work me wrong, 

And for excess of Love my Love is dumb. 

But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show 
Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung; 

Else it were better we should part, and go, 
Thou to some lips of sweeter melody, 
And I to nurse the barren memory 

Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung. 



THE FOURTH MOVEMENT 181 



HER VOICE 

THE wild bee reels from bough to bough 
With his furry coat and his gauzy wing, 
Now in a lily-cup, and now 
Setting a jacinth bell a-swing, 
In his wandering; 
Sit closer love: it was here I trow 
I made that vow, 

Swore that two lives should be like one 
As long as the sea-gull loved the sea, 
As long as the sunflower sought the sun, — 
It shall be, I said, for eternity 
'Twixt you and me ! 
Dear friend, those times are over and done, 
Love's web is spun. 

Look upward where the poplar-trees 
Sway and sway in the summer air, 
Here in the valley never a breeze 
Scatters the thistledown, but there 
Great winds blow fair 
From the mighty murmuring mystical seas, 
And the wave-lashed leas. 



182 THE FOURTH MOVEMENT 

Look upward where the white gull screams, 

What does it see that we do not see? 
Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams 
On some outward voyaging argosy, — 
Ah! can it be 
We have lived our lives in a land of dreams ! 
How sad it seems. 

Sweet, there is nothing left to say 

But this, that love is never lost, 
Keen winter stabs the breasts of May 
Whose crimson roses burst his frost, 
Ships tempest-tossed 
Will find a harbour in some bay, 
And so we may. 

And there is nothing left to do 

But to kiss once again, and part, 
Nay, there is nothing we should rue, 
I have my beauty, — you your Art, 
Nay, do not start, 
One world was not enough for two 
Like me and you. 



THE FOURTH MOVEMENT 183 



MY VOICE 

WITHIN this restless, hurried, modern world 
We took our hearts' full pleasure — You and I, 
And now the white sails of our ship are furled, 
And spent the lading of our argosy. 

Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan, 

For very weeping is my gladness fled, 
Sorrow has paled my young mouth's vermilion, 

And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed. 

But all this crowded life has been to thee 
No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell 

Of viols, or the music of the sea 

That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell. 



184 THE FOURTH MOVEMENT 



T^EDIUM VIT.E 

TO stab my youth with desperate knives, to wear 
This paltry age's gaudy livery, 
To let each base hand filch my treasury, 
To mesh my soul within a woman's hair, 
And be mere Fortune's lackeyed groom, — I swear 
I love it not ! these things are less to me 
Than the thin foam that frets upon the sea, 
Less than the thistle-down or summer air 
Which hath no seed: better to stand aloof 
Far from these slanderous fools who mock my life 
Knowing me not, better the lowliest roof 
Fit for the meanest hind to sojourn in, 
Than to go back to that hoarse cave of strife 
Where my white soul first kissed the mouth of sin. 



HUMANITAD 



HUMANITAD 

IT is full Winter now : the trees are bare, 
Save where the cattle huddle from the cold 
Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear 

The Autumn's gaudy livery whose gold 
Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true 
To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it 
blew 

From Saturn's cave ; a few thin wisps of hay 
Lie on the sharp black hedges, where the wain 

Dragged the sweet pillage of a summer's day 
From the low meadows up the narrow lane; 

Upon the half-thawed snow the bleating sheep 

Press close against the hurdles, and the shivering house- 
dogs creep 

From the shut stable to the frozen stream 

And back again disconsolate, and miss 
The bawling shepherds and the noisy team; 

And overhead in circling listlessness 
The cawing rooks whirl round the frosted stack, 
Or crowd the dripping boughs ; and in the fen the ice- 
pools crack 

187 



188 HUMANITAD 

Where the gaunt bittern stalks among the reeds 
And flaps his wings, and stretches back his neck, 

And hoots to see the moon ; across the meads 
Limps the poor frightened hare, a little speck ; 

And a stray seamew with its fretful cry 

Flits like a sudden drift of snow against the dull grey 
sky. 

Full winter: and the lusty goodman brings 
His load of faggots from the chilly byre, 

And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and flings 
The sappy billets on the waning fire, 

And laughs to see the sudden lightening scare 

His children at their play ; and yet, — the Spring is in the 
air, 

Already the slim crocus stirs the snow, 

And soon yon blanched fields will bloom again 

With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow, 
For with the first warm kisses of the rain 

The winter's icy sorrow breaks to tears, 

And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the 
rabbit peers 

From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie, 

, And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs 
Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly 

Across our path at evening, and the suns 
Stay longer with us ; ah ! how good to see 
Grass-girdled Spring in all her joy of laughing greenery 



HUMANITAD 189 

Dance through the hedges till the early rose, 
(That sweet repentance of the thorny brier!) 

Burst from its sheathed emerald and disclose 
The little quivering disk of golden fire 

Which the bees know so well, for with it come 

Pale boy's-love, sops-in-wine, and daffadillies all in 
bloom. 

Then up and down the field the sower goes, 

While close behind the laughing younker scares 

With shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows, 
And then the chestnut- tree its glory wears, 

And on the grass the creamy blossom falls 

In odorous excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals 

Steal from the bluebells' nodding carillons 
Each breezy morn, and then white jessamine, 

That star of its own heaven, snapdragons 

With lolling crimson tongues, and eglantine 

In dusty velvets clad usurp the bed 

And woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath 
shed 

Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply, 

And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes, 

Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy 

Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise, 

And violets getting overbold withdraw 

From their shy nooks, and scarlet berries dot the leafless 
haw. 



190 HUMANITAD 

O happy field ! and O thrice happy tree ! 

Soon will your queen in daisy-flowered smock 
And crown of flower-de-luce trip down the lea, 

Soon will the lazy shepherds drive their flock 
Back to the pasture by the pool, and soon 
Through the green leaves will float the hum of murmur- 
ing bees at noon. 

Soon will the glade be bright with bellamour, 

The flower which wantons love, and those sweet nuns 

Vale-lilies in their snowy vestiture 

Will tell their beaded pearls, and carnations 

With mitred dusky leaves will scent the wind, 

And straggling traveller's joy each hedge with yellow 
stars will bind. 

Dear Bride of Nature and most bounteous Spring ! 

That can'st give increase to the sweet-breath'd kine, 
And to the kid its little horns, and bring 

The. soft and silky blossoms to the vine, 
Where is that old nepenthe which of yore 
Man got from poppy root and glossy-berried mandra- 
gore! 

There was a time when any common bird 

Could make me sing in unison, a time 
When all the strings of boyish life were stirred 

To quick response or more melodious rhyme 
By every forest idyll; — do I change? 
Or rather doth some evil thing through thy fair pleas- 
aunce range? 



HUMANITAD 191 

Nay, nay, thou art the same: 'tis I who seek 

To vex with sighs thy simple solitude, 
And because fruitless tears bedew my cheek 

Would have thee weep with me in brotherhood; 
Fool ! shall each wronged and restless spirit dare 
To taint such wine with the salt poison of his own 
despair ! 

Thou art the same : 'tis I whose wretched soul 

Takes discontent to be its paramour, 
And gives its kingdom to the rude control 

Of what should be its servitor, — for sure 
Wisdom is somewhere, -though the stormy sea 
Contain it not, and the huge deep answer " 'Tis not in 
me. 

To burn with one clear flame, to stand erect 
In natural honour, not to bend the knee 

In profitless prostrations whose effect 
Is by itself condemned, what alchemy 

Can teach me this? what herb Medea brewed 

Will bring the unexultant peace of essence not subdued ? 

The minor chord which ends the harmony, 
And for its answering brother waits in vain 

Sobbing for incompleted melody, 

Dies a Swan's death; but I the heir of pain, 

A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes, 

Wait for the light and music of those suns which never 
rise. 



192 HUMANITAD 

The quenched-out torch, the lonely cypress-gloom, 
The little dust stored in the narrow urn, 

The gentle XAIPE of the Attic tomb, — 
Were not these better far than to return 

To my old fitful restless malady, 

Or spend my days within the voiceless cave of misery? 

Nay ! for perchance that poppy-crowned God 

Is like the watcher by a sick man's bed 
Who talks of sleep but gives it not ; his rod 

Hath lost its virtue, and, when all is said, 
Death is too rude, too obvious a key 
To solve one single secret in a life's philosophy. 

And Love ! that noble madness, whose august 

And inextinguishable might can slay 
The soul with honeyed drugs, — alas ! I must 

From such sweet ruin play the runaway, 
Although too constant memory never can 
Forget the arched splendour of those brows Olympian 

Which for a little season made my youth 

So soft a swoon of exquisite indolence 
That all the chiding of more prudent Truth 

Seemed the thin voice of jealousy, — O Hence 
Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis ! 
Go seek some other quarry ! for of thy too perilous bliss 

My lips have drunk enough, — no more, no more, — 
Though Love himself should turn his gilded prow 



HUMANITAD 193 

Back to the troubled waters of this shore 

Where I am wrecked and stranded, even now 
The chariot wheels of passion sweep too near, 
Hence! Hence! I pass unto a life more barren, more 
austere. 

More barren — ay, those arms will never lean 
Down through the trellised vines and draw my soul 

In sweet reluctance through the tangled green ; 
Some other head must wear that aureole, 

For I am Hers who loves not any man 

Whose white and stainless bosom bears the sign 
Gorgonian. 

Let Venus go and chuck her dainty page, 
And kiss his mouth, and toss his curly hair, 

With net and spear and hunting equipage 
Let young Adonis to his tryst repair, 

But me her fond and subtle-fashioned spell 

Delights no more, though I could win her dearest citadel. 

Ay, though I were that laughing shepherd boy 
Who from Mount Ida saw the little cloud 

Pass over Tenedos and lofty Troy 

And knew the coming of the Queen, and bowed 

In wonder at her feet, not for the sake 

Of a new Helen would I bid her hand the apple take. 

Then rise supreme Athena argent-limbed! 
And, if my lips be musicless, inspire 



194 HUMANITAD 

At least my life: was not thy glory hymned 

By One who gave to thee his sword and lyre 
Like xEschylus at well-fought Marathon, 
And died to show that Milton's England still could bear 
a son! 

And yet I cannot tread the Portico 

And live without desire, fear, and pain, 
Or nurture that wise calm which long ago 

The grave Athenian master taught to men, 
Self-poised, self-centred, and self-comforted, 
To watch the world's vain phantasies go by with un- 
bowed head. 

Alas ! that serene brow, those eloquent lips, 

Those eyes that mirrored all eternity, 
Rest in their own Colonos, an eclipse 

Hath come on Wisdom, and Mnemosyne 
Is childless ; in the night which she had made 
For lofty secure flight Athena's owl itself hath strayed. 

Nor much with Science do I care to climb, 
Although by strange and subtle witchery 

She draw the moon from heaven: the Muse of Time 
Unrolls her gorgeous-coloured tapestry 

To no less eager eyes ; often indeed 

In the great epic of Polymnia's scroll I love to read 

How Asia sent her myriad hosts to war 
Against a little town, and panoplied 



HUMANITAD 195 

In gilded mail with jewelled scimitar, 

White-shielded, purple-crested, rode the Mede 
Between the waving poplars and the sea 
Which men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylae 

Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall, 

And on the nearer side a little brood 
Of careless lions holding festival ! 

And stood amazed at such hardihood, 
And pitched his tent upon the reedy shore, 
And stayed two days to wonder and then crept at mid- 
night o'er 

Some unfrequented height, and coming down 

The autumn forests treacherously slew 
What Sparta held most dear and was the crown 

Of far Eurotas, and passed on, nor knew 
How God had staked an evil net for him 
In the small bay at Salamis, — and yet, the page grows 
dim, 

Its cadenced Greek delights me not, I feel 
With such a goodly time too out of tune 

To love it much: for like the Dial's wheel 

That from its blinded darkness strikes the noon 

Yet never sees the sun, so do my eyes 

Restlessly follow that which from my cheated vision flies. 

for one grand unselfish simple life 

To teach us what is Wisdom! speak ye hills 



196 HUMANITAD 

Of lone Helvellyn, for this note of strife 

Shunned your untroubled crags and crystal rills, 
Where is that Spirit which living blamelessly 
Yet dared to kiss the smitten mouth of his own century ! 

Speak ye Rydalian laurels ! where is He 

Whose gentle head ye sheltered, that pure soul 

Whose gracious days of uncrowned majesty 

Through lowliest conduct touched the lofty goal 

Where Love and Duty mingle ! Him at least 

The most high Laws were glad of, He had sat at Wis- 
dom's feast, 

But we are Learning's changelings, know by rote 
The clarion watchword of each Grecian school 

And follow none, the flawless sword which smote 
The pagan Hydra is an effete tool 

Which we ourselves have blunted, what man now 

Shall scale the august ancient heights and to old Rever- 
ence bow? 

One such indeed I saw, but, Ichabod ! 

Gone is that last dear son of Italy, 
Who being man died for the sake of God, 

And whose unrisen bones sleep peacefully, 
O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto's tower, 
Thou marble lily of the lily town ! let not the lour 

Of the rude tempest vex his slumber, or 
The Arno with its tawny troubled gold 



HUMANITAD 197 

O'erleap its marge, no mightier conqueror 

Clomb the high Capitol in the days of old 
When Rome was indeed Rome, for Liberty 
Walked like a Bride beside him, at which sight pale 

Mystery 

Fled shrieking to her farthest sombrest cell 
With an old man who grabbled rusty keys, 

Fled shuddering for that immemorial knell 
With which oblivion buries dynasties 

Swept like a wounded eagle on the blast, 

As to the holy heart of Rome the great triumvir passed. 

He knew the holiest heart and heights of Rome, 
He drave the base wolf from the lion's lair, 

And now lies dead by that empyreal dome 
Which overtops Valdarno hung in air 

By Brunelleschi — O Melpomene 

Breathe through thv melancholy pipe thy sweetest 
threnody ! 

Breathe through the tragic stops such melodies 
That Joy's self may grow jealous, and the Nine 

Forget awhile their discreet emperies, 

Mourning for him who on Rome's lordliest shrine 

Lit for men's lives the light of Marathon, 

And bare to sun- forgotten fields the fire of the sun! 

O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto's tower, 
Let some young Florentine each eventide 



198 HUMANITAD 

Bring coronals of that enchanted flower 

Which the dim woods of Vallombrosa hide, 
And deck the marble tomb wherein he lies 
Whose soul is as some mighty orb unseen of mortal eyes. 

Some mighty orb whose cycled wanderings, 
Being tempest-driven to the farthest rim 

Where Chaos meets Creation and the wings 
Of the eternal chanting Cherubim 

Are pavilioned on Nothing, passed away 

Into a moonless void, — and yet, though he is dust and 
clay, 

He is not dead, the immemorial Fates 
Forbid it, and the closing shears refrain, 

Lift up your heads ye everlasting gates ! 
Ye argent clarions sound a loftier strain ! 

For the vile thing he hated lurks within 

Its sombre house, alone with God and memories of sin. 

Still what avails it that she sought her cave 
That murderous mother of red harlotries? 

At Munich on the marble architrave 

The Grecian boys die smiling, but the seas 

Which wash ^gina fret in loneliness 

Not mirroring their beauty, so our lives grow colourless 

For lack of our ideals, if one star 

Flame torch-like in the heavens the unjust 

Swift daylight kills it, and no trump of war 
Can wake to passionate voice the silent dust 



HUMANITAD 199 

Which was Mazzini once! rich Niobe 

For all her stony sorrows hath her sons, but Italy ! 

What Easter Day shall make her children rise, 
Who were not Gods yet suffered? what sure feet 

Shall find their graveclothes folded? what clear eyes 
Shall see them bodily? O it were meet 

To roll the stone from off the sepulchre 

And kiss the bleeding roses of their wounds, in love of 
Her 

Our Italy ! our mother visible ! 

Most blessed among nations and most sad, 
For whose dear sake the young Calabrian fell 

That day at Aspromonte and was glad 
That in an age when God was bought and sold 
One man could die for Liberty ! but we, burnt out and 
cold, 

See Honour smitten on the cheek and gyves 

Bind the sweet feet of Mercy : Poverty 
Creeps through our sunless lanes and with sharp knives 

Cuts the warm throats of children stealthily, 
And no word said: — O we are wretched men 
Unworthy of our great inheritance ! where is the pen 

Of austere Milton ? where the mighty sword 
Which slew its master righteously ? the years 

Have lost their ancient leader, and no word 
Breaks from the voiceless tripod on our ears : 



200 HUMANITAD 

While as a ruined mother in some spasm 

Bears a base child and loathes it, so our best enthusiasm 

Genders unlawful children, Anarchy 

Freedom's own Judas, the vile prodigal 

License who steals the gold of Liberty 
And yet has nothing, Ignorance the real 

One Fratricide since Cain, Envy the asp 

That stings itself to anguish, Avarice whose palsied 
grasp 

Is in its extent stiffened, moneyed Greed 
For whose dull appetite men waste away 

Amid the whirr of wheels and are the seed 

Of things which slay their sower, these each day 

Sees rife in England, and the gentle feet 

Of Beauty tread no more the stones of each unlovely 
street. 

What even Cromwell spared is desecrated 
By weed and worm, left to the stormy play 

Of wind and beating snow, or renovated 

By more destructful hands : Time's worst decay 

Will wreathe its ruins with some loveliness, 

But these new Vandals can but make a rainproof barren- 
ness. 

Where is that Art which bade the Angels sing 
Through Lincoln's lofty choir, till the air 

Seems from such marble harmonies to ring 

With sweeter song than common lips can dare 



HUMANITAD 201 

To draw from actual reed ? ah ! where is now 
The cunning hand which made the flowering hawthorn 
branches bow 

For Southwell's arch, and carved the House of One 

Who loved the lilies of the field with all 
Our dearest English flowers? the same sun 

Rises for us: the seasons natural 
Weave the same tapestry of green and grey: 
The unchanged hills are with us: but that Spirit hath 
passed away. 

And yet perchance it may be better so, 

For Tyranny is an incestuous Queen, 
Murder her brother is her bedfellow, 

And the Plague chambers with her : in obscene 
And bloody paths her treacherous feet are set; 
Better the empty desert and a soul inviolate! 

For gentle brotherhood, the harmony 

Of living in the healthful air, the swift 
Clean beauty of strong limbs when men are free 

And women chaste, these are the things which lift 
Our souls up more than even Agnolo's 
Gaunt blinded Sibyl poring o'er the scroll of human woes, 

Or Titian's little maiden on the stair 
White as her own sweet lily, and as tall 

Or Mona Lisa smiling through her hair,- — 
Ah ! somehow life is bigger after all 



202 HUMANITAD 

Than any painted Angel could we see 

The God that is within us ! The old Greek serenity 

Which curbs the passion of that level line 

Of marble youths, who with untroubled eyes 

And chastened limbs ride round Athena's shrine 
And mirror her divine economies, 

And balanced symmetry of what in man 

Would else wage ceaseless warfare, — this at least within 
the span 

Between our mother's kisses and the grave 
Might so inform our lives, that we could win 

Such mighty empires that from her cave 

Temptation would grow hoarse, and pallid Sin 

Would walk ashamed of his adulteries, 

And Passion creep from out the House of Lust with 
startled eyes. 

To make the Body and the Spirit one 

With all right things, till no thing live in vain 

From morn to noon, but in sweet unison 

With every pulse of flesh and throb of brain 

The Soul in flawless essence high enthroned, 

Against all outer vain attack invincibly bastioned, 

Mark with serene impartiality 

The strife of things, and yet be comforted, 
Knowing that by the chain causality 

All separate existences are wed 
Into one supreme whole, whose utterance 
Is joy, or holier praise! ah! surely this were governance 



HUMANITAD 203 

Of Life in most august omnipresence, 

Through which the rational intellect would find 

In passion its expression, and mere sense, 
Ignoble else, lend fire to the mind, 

And being joined with it in harmony 

More mystical than that which binds the stars planetary, 

Strike from their several tones one octave chord 
Whose cadence being measureless would fly 

Through all the circling spheres, then to its Lord 
Return refreshed with its new empery 

And more exultant power, — this indeed 

Could we but reach it were to find the last, the perfect 
creed- 

Ah ! it was easy when the world was young 

To keep one's life free and inviolate, 
From our sad lips another song is rung, 

By our own hands our heads are desecrate, 
Wanderers in drear exile, and dispossessed 
Of what should be our own, we can but feed on wild 
unrest. 

Somehow the grace, the bloom of things has flown, 
And of all men we are most wretched who 

Must live each other's lives and not our own 
For very pity's sake and then undo 

All that we lived for — it was otherwise 

When soul and body seemed to blend in mystic sym- 
phonies. 



204 HUMANITAD 

But we have left those gentle haunts to pass 

With weary feet to the new Calvary, 
Where we behold, as one who in a glass 

Sees his own face, self-slain Humanity, 
And in the dumb reproach of that sad gaze 
Learn what an awful phantom the red hand of man can 
raise. 

O smitten mouth ! O forehead crowned with thorn ! 

O chalice of all common miseries ! 
Thou for our sakes that loved thee not hast borne 

An agony of endless centuries, 
And we were vain and ignorant nor knew 
That when we stabbed thy heart it was our own real 
hearts we slew. 

Being ourselves the sowers and the seeds, 

The night that covers and the lights that fade, 

The spear that pierces and the side that bleeds, 
The lips betraying and the life betrayed ; 

The deep hath calm : the moon hath rest : but we 

Lords of the natural world are yet our own dread enemy. 

Is this the end of all that primal force 
Which, in its changes being still the same, 

From eyeless Chaos cleft its upward course, 

Through ravenous seas and whirling rocks and flame, 

Till the suns met in heaven and began 

Their cycles, and the morning stars sang, and the Word 
was Man ! 



HUMANITAD 205 

Nay, nay, we are but crucified, and though 

The bloody sweat falls from our brows like rain, 

Loosen the nails — we shall come down I know, 

Staunch the red wounds — we shall be whole again, 

No need have we of hyssop-laden rod, 

That which is purely human, that is Godlike, that is God. 



FLOWER OF LOVE 



TATKYniKPOS EPQS 

SWEET I blame you not for mine the fault was, had 
I not been made of common clay 
I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the 
fuller air, the larger day. 

From the wildness of my wasted passion I had struck a 

better, clearer song, 
Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled with some 

Hydra-headed wrong. 

Had my lips been smitten into music by the kisses that 
but made them bleed, 

You had walked with Bice and the angels on that ver- 
dant and enamelled mead. 

I had trod the road which Dante treading saw the suns 

of seven circles shine, 
Ay ! perchance had seen the heavens opening, as they 

opened to the Florentine. 

And the mighty nations would have crowned me, who am 

crownless now and without name, 
And some orient dawn had found me kneeling on the 

threshold of the House of Fame. 
209 



210 FLOWER OF LOVE 

I had sat within that marble circle where the oldest bard 

is as the young, 
And the pipe is ever dropping honey, and the lyre's 

strings are ever strung. 

Keats had lifted up his hymeneal curls from out the 

poppy-seeded wine, 
With ambrosial mouth had kissed my forehead, clasped 

the hand of noble love in mine. 

And at springtide, when the apple-blossoms brush the 

burnished bosom of the dove, 
Two young lovers lying in an orchard would have read 

the story of our love. 

Would have read the legend of my passion, known the 

bitter secret of my heart, 
Kissed as we have kissed, but never parted as we two are 

fated now to part. 

For the crimson flower of our life is eaten by the canker- 
worm of truth, 

And no hand can gather up the fallen withered petals 
of the rose of youth. 

Yet I am not sorry that I loved you — ah ! what else had 
I a boy to do, — 

For the hungry teeth of time devour, and the silent- 
footed years pursue. 



FLOWER OF LOVE 211 

Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, and when once 

the storm of youth is past, 
Without lyre, without lute or chorus, Death the silent 

pilot comes at last. 

And within the grave there is no pleasure, for the blind- 
worm battens on the root, 

And Desire shudders into ashes, and the tree of Passion 
bears no fruit. 

Ah ! what else had I to do but love you, God's own mother 

was less dear to me, 
And less dear the Cythersean rising like an argent lily 

from the sea. 

I have made my choice, have lived my poems, and, though 

youth is gone in wasted days, 
I have found the lover's crown of myrtle better than the 

poet's crown of bays. 



THE SPHINX 

MDCCCXCIV 



THE SPHINX 



T N a dim corner of my room for longer than my fancy 
-*- thinks 

A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me through 
the shifting gloom. 



Inviolate and immobile she does not rise, she does not 

stir, 
For silver moons are naught to her and naught to her the 

suns that reel. 

Red follows grey across the air the waves of moonlight 

ebb and flow 
But with the Dawn she does not go and in the night-time 

she is there. 

Dawn follows Dawn and Nights grow old and all the 

while this curious cat 
Lies crouching on the Chinese mat with eyes of satin 

rimmed with gold. 

Upon the mat she lies and leers and on the tawny throat 

of her 
Flutters the soft and silky fur or ripples to her pointed 

ears. 

215 



216 THE SPHINX 

Come forth my lovely seneschal ! so somnolent, so statu- 
esque ! 

Come forth you exquisite grotesque ! half woman and half 
animal ! 

Come forth my lovely languorous Sphinx ! and put your 

head upon my knee ! 
And let me stroke your throat and see your body spotted 

like the Lynx! 

And let me touch those curving claws of yellow ivory and 

grasp 
The tail that like a monstrous Asp coils round your 

heavy velvet paws! 



THE SPHINX 217 



A THOUSAND weary centuries are thine while I 
have hardly seen 
Some twenty summers cast their green for Autumn's 
gaudy liveries. 



But you can read the Hieroglyphs on the great sand- 
stone obelisks, 

And you have talked with Basilisks, and you have looked 
on Hippogriffs. 

O tell me, were you standing by when Isis to Osiris knelt? 
And did you watch the Egyptian melt her union for 
Antony 

And drink the j ewel-drunken wine and bend her head in 

mimic awe 
To see the huge proconsul draw the salted tunny from 

the brine? 

And did you mark the Cyprian kiss white Adon on his 

catafalque ? 
And did you follow Amenalk, the god of Heliopolis? 

And did you talk with Thoth, and did you hear the 

moon-horned Io weep? 
And know the painted kings who sleep beneath the 

wedge-shaped pyramid ? 



218 THE SPHINX 



LIFT up your large black satin eyes which are like 
cushions where one sinks ! 
Fawn at my feet fantastic Sphinx ! and sing me all your 
memories ! 



Sing to me of the Jewish maid who wandered with the 

Holy Child, 
And how you led them through the wild, and how they 

slept beneath your shade. 

Sing to me of that odorous green eve when couching by 

the marge 
You heard from Adrian's gilded barge the laughter of 

Antinous 

And lapped the stream and fed your drouth and watched 
with hot and hungry stare 

The ivory body of that rare young slave with his pome- 
granate mouth! 

Sing to me of the Labyrinth in which the twy-formed 

bull was stalled ! 
Sing to me of the night you crawled across the temple's 

granite plinth 



THE SPHINX 219 

When through the purple corridors the screaming scarlet 

Ibis flew 
In terror, and a horrid dew dripped from the moaning 

Mandragores, 

And the great torpid crocodile within the tank shed slimy 

tears, 
And tare the jewels from his ears and staggered back 

into the Nile, 

And the priests cursed you with shrill psalms as in your 

claws you seized their snake 
And crept away with it to slake your passion by the 

shuddering palms. 



220 THE SPHINX 



WHO were your lovers ? who were they who wrestled 
for you in the dust? 
Which was the vessel of your Lust? What Leman had 
you, every day? 

Did giant lizards come and crouch before you on the 

reedy banks? 
Did Gryphons with great metal flanks leap on you in 

your trampled couch ? 

Did monstrous hippopotami come sidling toward you in 

the mist? 
Did gilt-scaled dragons writhe and twist with passion as 

you passed them by? 

And from the brick-built Lycian tomb what horrible Chi- 
mera came 

With fearful heads and fearful flame to breed new won- 
ders from your womb? 



THE SPHINX 221 



OR had you shameful secret quests and did you harry 
to your home 
Some Nereid coiled in amber foam with curious rock 
crystal breasts? 



Or did you treading through the froth call to the brown 

Sidonian 
For tidings of Leviathan, Leviathan or Behemoth? 

Or did you when the sun was set climb up the cactus- 
covered slope 

To meet your swarthy Ethiop whose body was of polished 
jet? 

Or did you while the earthen skiffs dropped down the 
grey Nilotic flats 

At twilight and the flickering bats flew round the tem- 
ple's triple glyphs 

Steal to the border of the bar and swim across the silent 

lake 
And slink into the vault and make the Pyramid your 

lupanar 

Till from each black sarcophagus rose up the painted 

swathed dead? 
Or did you lure unto your bed the ivory-horned Tragel- 

aphos ? 



222 THE SPHINX 

Or did you love the god of flies who plagued the Hebrews 

and was splashed 
With wine unto the waist? or Pasht, who had green 

beryls for her eyes? 

Or that young god, the Tyrian, who was more amorous 

than the dove 
Of Ashtaroth? or did you love the god of the Assyrian 

Whose wings, like strange transparent talc, rose high 

above his hawk-faced head, 
Painted with silver and with red and ribbed with rods of 

Oreichalch ? 

Or did huge Apis from his car leap down and lay before 
your feet 

Big blossoms of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured nen- 
uphar? 



THE SPHINX 223 



T T OW subtle-secret is your smile ! Did you love none 
■*■ -*■ then? Nay, I know 

Great Ammon was your bedfellow ! He lay with you 
beside the Nile! 



The river-horses in the slime trumpeted when they saw 
him come 

Odorous with Syrian galbanum and smeared with spike- 
nard and with thyme. 

He came along the river-bank like some tall galley ar- 
gent-sailed, 

He strode across the waters, mailed in beauty, and the 
waters sank. 

He strode across the desert sand : he reached the valley 

where you lay : 
He waited till the dawn of day : then f ouched your black 

breasts with his hand. 

You kissed his mouth with mouths of flame: you made 

the horned god your own: 
You stood behind him on his throne : you called him by 

his secret name. 



224 THE SPHINX 

You whispered monstrous oracles into the caverns of his 

ears: 
With blood of goats and blood of steers you taught him 
monstrous miracles. 

White Ammon was your bedfellow ! Your chamber was 

the steaming Nile ! 
And with your curved archaic smile you watched his 

passion come and go. 



THE SPHINX 225 



WITH Syrian oils his brows were bright : and wide- 
spread as a tent at noon 
His marble limbs made pale the moon and lent the day a 
larger light. 

His long hair was nine cubits' span and coloured like 

that yellow gem 
Which hidden in their garment's hem the merchants 

bring from Kurdistan. 

His face was as the must that lies upon a vat of new- 
made wine : 

The seas could not insapphirine the perfect azure of his 
eyes. 

His thick soft throat was white as milk and threaded 

with thin veins of blue : 
And curious pearls like frozen dew were broidered on his 

flowing silk. 



226 THE SPHINX 



ON pearl and porphyry pedestalled he was too bright 
to look upon : 
For on his ivory breast there shone the wondrous ocean- 
emerald, 



That mystic moonlit jewel which some diver of the Col- 

chian caves 
Had found beneath the blackening waves and carried to 

the Colchian witch. 

Before his gilded galiot ran naked vine-wreathed cory- 

bants, 
And lines of swaying elephants knelt down to draw his 

chariots, 

And lines of swarthy Nubians bare up his litter as he 

rode 
Down the great granite-paven road between the nodding 

peacock-fans. 

The merchants brought him steatite from Sidon in their 

painted ships : 
The meanest cup that touched his lips was fashioned 

from a chrysolite. 

The merchants brought him cedar-chests of rich apparel 

bound with cords : 
His train was borne by Memphian lords: young kings 
- were glad to be his guests. 



THE SPHINX 227 

Ten hundred shaven priests did bow to Amnion's altar 
day and night, 

Ten hundred lamps did wave their light through Am- 
nion's carven house — and now 

Foul snake and speckled adder with their young ones 

crawl from stone to stone 
For ruined is the house and prone the great rose-marble 

monolith ! 

Wild ass or trotting jackal comes and couches in the 

mouldering gates : 
Wild satyrs call unto their mates across the fallen fluted 

drums. 

And on the summit of the pile the blue-faced ape of 

Horus sits 
And gibbers while the fig-tree splits the pillars of the 

peristyle. 



228 THE SPHINX 



THE god is scattered here and there: deep hidden 
in the windy sand 
I saw his giant granite hand still clenched in impotent 
despair. 



And many a wandering caravan of stately negroes 

silken-shawled, 
Crossing the desert, halts appalled before the neck that 

none can span. 

And many a bearded Bedouin draws back his yellow- 
striped burnous 

To gaze upon the Titan thews of him who was thy 
paladin. 



THE SPHINX 229 



GO, seek his fragments on the moor and wash them 
in the evening dew, 
And from their pieces make anew thy mutilated para- 
mour! 



Go, seek them where they lie alone and from their broken 

pieces make 
Thy bruised bedfellow! And wake mad passions in the 

senseless stone! 

Charm his dull ear with Syrian hymns ! he loved your 

body ! oh, be kind, 
Pour spikenard on his hair, and wind soft rolls of linen 

round his limbs ! 

Wind round his head the figured coins ! stain with red 

fruits those pallid lips ! 
Weave purple for his shrunken hips ! and purple for his 

barren loins ! 



230 THE SPHINX 



AWAY to Egypt! Have no fear. Only one God 
lias ever died. 
Only one God has let His side be wounded by a soldier's 
spear. 



But these, thy lovers, are not dead. Still by the hun- 
dred-cubit gate 

Dog-faced Anubis sits in state with lotus-lilies for thy 
head. 

Still from his chair of porphyry gaunt Memnon strains 

his lidless eyes 
Across the empty land, and cries each yellow morning 

unto thee. 

And Nilus with his broken horn lies in his black and 

oozy bed 
And till thy coming will not spread his waters on the 

withering corn. 

Your lovers are not dead, I know. They will rise up and 

hear your voice 
And clash their cymbals and rejoice and run to kiss 

'your mouth ! And so, 



THE SPHINX 231 

Set wings upon your argosies ! Set horses to your ebon 

car! 
Back to your Nile! Or if you are grown sick of dead 

divinities 

Follow some roving lion's spoor across the copper- 
coloured plain, 

Reach out and hale him by the mane and bid him be 
your paramour! 

Couch by his side upon the grass and set your white 

teeth in his throat 
And when you hear his dying note lash your long flanks 

of polished brass 

And take a tiger for your mate, whose amber sides are 

flecked with black, 
And ride upon his gilded back in triumph through the 

Theban gate, 

And toy with him in amorous jests, and when he turns, 

and snarls, and gnaws, 
O smite him with your j asper claws ! and bruise him 

with your agate breasts ! 



232 THE SPHINX 



WHY are you tarrying? Get hence! I weary of 
your sullen ways, 
I weary of your steadfast gaze, your somnolent mag- 
nificence. 



Your horrible and heavy breath makes the light nicker 

in the lamp, 
And on my brow I feel the damp and dreadful dews of 

night and death. 

Your eyes are like fantastic moons that shiver in some 
stagnant lake, 

Your tongue is like a scarlet snake that dances to fan- 
tastic tunes, 

Your pulse makes poisonous melodies, and your black 
throat is like the hole 

Left by some torch or burning coal on Saracenic tapes- 
tries. 

Away! The sulphur-coloured stars are hurrying 

through the Western gate! 
Away ! Or it may be too late to climb their silent silver 
. cars ! 



THE SPHINX 233 

See, the dawn shivers round the grey gilt-dialled tow- 
ers, and the rain 

Streams down each diamonded pane and blurs with tears 
the wannish day. 

What snake-tressed fury fresh from Hell, with uncouth 

gestures and unclean, 
Stole from the poppy-drowsy queen and led you to a 

student's cell? 



234 THE SPHINX 



WHAT songless tongueless ghost of sin crept 
through the curtains of the night, 
And saw my taper burning bright, and knocked, and 
bade you enter in? 

Are there not others more accursed, whiter with lepro- 
sies than I? 

Are Abana and Pharpar dry that you come here to 
slake your thirst? 

Get hence, you loathsome mystery ! Hideous animal, 

get hence ! 
You wake in me each bestial sense, you make me what 

I would not be. 

You make my creed a barren sham, you wake foul 

dreams of sensual life, 
And Atys with his blood-stained knife were better than 

the thing I am. 

False Sphinx ! False Sphinx ! By reedy Styx old 

Charon, leaning on his oar, 
Waits for my coin. Go thou before, and leave me to 

my crucifix, 

Whose pallid burden, sick with pain, watches the world 

with wearied eyes, 
And weeps for every soul that dies, and weeps for every 
« soul in vain. 



THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 

MDCCCXCVIII 



IN MEMORIAM 
C. T. W. 

SOMETIME TROOPER OF THE ROYAL HORSE GUARDS 

OBIIT H. M. PRISON, READING. BERKSHIRE 

JULY 7. 1896 



THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 



HE did not wear his scarlet coat, 
For blood and wine are red, 
And blood and wine were on his hands 
j» When they found him with the dead, 
The poor dead woman whom he loved, 
And murdered in her bed. 

He walked amongst the Trial Men 
In a suit of shabby grey ; 
\ A cricket cap was on his head, 

And his step seemed light and gay ; 
But I never saw a man who looked 
So wistfully at the day. 

I never saw a man who looked 

With such a wistful eye 
Upon that little tent of blue 

Which prisoners call the sky, 
And at every drifting cloud that went 

With sails of silver by. 

I walked, with other souls in pain, 
Within another ring, 
237 



238 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 

And was wondering if the man had done 

A great or little thing, 
When a voice behind me whispered low, 

"That fellow's got to swing." 

Dear Christ! the very prison walls 

Suddenly seemed to reel, 
And the sky above my head became 

Like a casque of scorching steel; 
And, though I was a soul in pain, 

My pain I could not feel. 

I only knew what hunted thought 
Quickened his step, and why > 

He looked upon the garish day 
With such a wistful eye ; 

The man had killed the thing he loved, 
And so he had to die. 



Yet each man kills the thing he loves, 

By each let this be heard, 
Some do it with a bitter look, 

Some with a flattering word, 
The coward does it with a kiss, 

The brave man with a sword! 

Some kill their love when they are young, 

And some when they are old; 
Some strangle with the hands of Lust, 
- Some with the hands of Gold ; 



THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 239 

The kindest use a knife, because 
The dead so soon grow cold. 

Some love too little, some too long, 

Some sell, and others buy ; 
Some do the deed with many tears, 

And some without a sigh : 
For each man kills the thing he loves, 
/ Yet each man does not die. 



He does not die a death of shame 

On a day of dark disgrace, 
Nor have a noose about his neck, 

Nor a cloth upon his face, 
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor 

Into an empty space. 

He does not sit with silent men 
Who watch him night and day ; 

Who watch him when he tries to weep, 
And when he tries to pray ; 

Who watch him lest himself should rob 
The prison of its prey. 

He does not wake at dawn to see 
Dread figures throng his room, 

The shivering Chaplain robed in white, 
The Sheriff stern with gloom, 

And the Governor all in shiny black,. 
With the yellow face of Doom. 



240 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 

He does not rise in piteous haste 

To put on convict-clothes, 
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes 

Each new and nerve-twitched pose, 
Fingering a watch whose little ticks 

Are like horrible hammer-blows. 

He does not know that sickening thirst 

That sands one's throat, before 
The hangman with his gardener's gloves 

Slips through the padded door, 
And binds one with three leathern thongs, 

That the throat may thirst no more. 

He does not bend his head to hear 

The Burial Office read, 
Nor while the terror of his soul 

Tells him he is not dead, 
Cross his own coffin, as he moves 

Into the hideous shed. 

He does not stare upon the air 

Through a little roof of glass: 
He does not pray with lips of clay 

For his agony to pass ; 
■ Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek 

The kiss of Caiaphas. 



THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 241 



II 

SIX weeks our guardsman walked the yard, 
In the suit of shabby grey : 
His cricket cap was on his head, 

And his step seemed light and gay, 
But I never saw a man who looked 
So wistfully at the day. 

I never saw a man who looked 

With such a wistful eye 
Upon that little tent of blue 

Which prisoners call the sky, 
And at every wandering cloud that trailed 

Its ravelled fleeces by. 

He did not wring his hands, as do 

Those witless men who dare 
To try to rear the changeling Hope 

In the cave of black Despair : 
He only looked upon the sun, 

And drank the morning air. 

He did not wring his hands nor weep, 
Nor did he peek or pine, 



242 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 

But he drank the air as though it held 

Some healthful anodyne ; 
With open mouth he drank the sun 

As though it had been wine ! 

And I and all the souls in pain, 
Who tramped the other ring, 

Forgot if we ourselves had done 
A great or little thing, 

And watched with gaze of dull amaze 
The man who had to swing. 

And strange it was to see him pass 
With a step so light and gay, 

And strange it was to see him look 
So wistfully at the day, 

And strange it was to think that he 
Had such a debt to pay. 



For oak and elm have pleasant leaves 
That in the spring-time shoot : 

But grim to see is the gallows-tree, 
With its adder-bitten root, 

And, green or dry, a man must die 
Before it bears its fruit! 

The loftiest place is that seat of grace 

For which all worldlings try: 
But who would stand in hempen band 
. Upon a scaffold high, 



THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 243 

And through a murderer's collar take 
His last look at the sky? 

It is sweet to dance to violins 

When Love and Life are fair : 
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes 

Is delicate and rare: 
But it is not sweet with nimble feet 

To dance upon the air! 

So with curious eyes and sick surmise 
We watched him day by day, 

And wondered if each one of us 
Would end the self-same way, 

For none can tell to what red Hell 
His sightless soul may stray. 

At last the dead man walked no more 

Amongst the Trial Men, 
And I knew that he was standing up 

In the black dock's dreadful pen, 
And that never would I see his face 

In God's sweet world again. 

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm 
We had crossed each other's way : 

But we made no sign, we said no word, 
We had no word to say ; 

For we did not meet in the holy night, 
But in the shameful day. 



244 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 

A prison wall was round us both, 

Two outcast men we were: 
The world had thrust us from its heart, 

And God from out His care : 
And the iron gin that waits for Sin 

Had caught us in its snare. 



THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 245 



III 

IN Debtors' Yard the stones are hard, 
And the dripping wall is high, 
So it was there he took the air 

Beneath the leaden sky, 
And by each side a Warder walked, 
For fear the man might die. 

Or else he sat with those who watched 

His anguish night and day ; 
Who watched him when he rose to weep, 

And when he crouched to pray ; 
Who watched him lest himself should rob 

Their scaffold of its prey. 

The Governor was strong upon 

The Regulations Act: 
The Doctor said that Death was but 

A scientific fact: 
And twice a day the Chaplain called, 

And left a little tract. 



And twice a day he smoked his pipe, 
And drank his quart of beer: 

His soul was resolute, and held 
No hiding-place for fear; 



246 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 

He often said that he was glad 
The hangman's hands were near. 

But why he said so strange a thing 

No Warder dared to ask : 
For he to whom a watcher's doom 

Is given as his task, 
Must set a lock upon his lips, 

And make his face a mask. 

Or else he might be moved, and try 

To comfort or console: 
And what should Human Pity do 

Pent up in Murderers' Hole? 
What word of grace in such a place 

Could help a brother's soul? 



With slouch and swing around the ring 

We trod the Fools' Parade! 
We did not care : we knew we were 

The Devil's Own Brigade : 
And shaven head and feet of lead 

Make a merry masquerade. 

We tore the tarry rope to shreds 

With blunt and bleeding nails ; 
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors, 

And cleaned the shining rails : 
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank, 

And clattered with the pails. 



THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 247 

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, 

We turned the dusty drill : 
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns, 

And sweated on the mill : 
But in the heart of every man 

Terror was lying still. 

So still it lay that every day 

Crawled like a weed-clogged wave : 

And we forgot the bitter lot 
That waits for fool and knave, 

Till once, as we tramped in from work, 
We passed an open grave. 

With yawning mouth the yellow hole 

Gaped for a living thing; 
The very mud cried out for blood 

To the thirsty asphalte ring: 
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair 

Some prisoner had to swing. 

Right in we went, with soul intent 
On Death and Dread and Doom : 

The hangman, with his little bag, 
Went shuffling through the gloom : 

And each man trembled as he crept 
Into his numbered tomb. 



That night the empty corridors 
Were full of forms of Fear, 



248 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 

And up and down the iron town 
Stole feet we could not hear, 

And through the bars that hide the stars 
White faces seemed to peer. 

He lay as one who lies and dreams 
In a pleasant meadow-land, 

The watchers watched him as he slept, 
And could not understand 

How one could sleep so sweet a sleep 
With a hangman close at hand. 

But there is no sleep when men must weep 

Who never yet have wept : 
So we — the fool, the fraud, the knave — 

That endless vigil kept, 
And through each brain on hands of pain 

Another's terror crept. 



Alas ! it is a fearful thing 

To feel another's guilt! 
For, right within, the sword of Sin 

Pierced to its poisoned hilt, 
And as molten lead were the tears we shed 

For the blood we had not spilt. 

The Warders with their shoes of felt 
Crept by each padlocked door, 

And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe, 
Grey figures on the floor, 



THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 249 

And wondered why men knelt to pray 
Who never prayed before. 

All through the night we knelt and prayed, 

Mad mourners of a corse! 
The troubled plumes of midnight were 

The plumes upon a hearse: 
And bitter wine upon a sponge 

Was the savour of Remorse. 



The grey cock crew, the red cock crew, 

But never came the day: 
And crooked shapes of Terror crouched, 

In the corners where we lay : 
And each evil sprite that walks by night 

Before us seemed to play. 

They glided past, they glided fast, 

Like travellers through a mist: 
They mocked the moon in ^"ngadoon 

Of delicate turn and twist, 
And with formal pace and loathsome grace 

The phantoms kept their tryst. 

With mop and mow, we saw them go, 

Slim shadows hand in hand: 
About, about, in ghostly rout 

They trod a saraband: 
And the damned grotesques made arabesques, 

Like the wind upon the sand ! 



250 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 

With the pirouettes of marionettes, 
They tripped on pointed tread : 

But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear, 
As their grisly masque they led, 

And loud they sang, and long they sang, 
For they sang to wake the dead. 

"Oho!" they cried, "The world is wide, 
But fettered limbs go lame! 

And once, or twice, to throw the dice 
Is a gentlemanly game, 

But he does not win who plays with Sin 
In the secret House of Shame." 



No things of air these antics were, 

That frolicked with such glee: 
To men whose lives were held in gyves, 

And whose feet might not go free, 
Ah ! wounds of Christ ! they were living things, 

Most terrible to see. 

Around, around, they waltzed and wound; 

Some wheeled in smirking pairs ; 
With the mincing step of a demirep 

Some sidled up the stairs : 
And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer, 

Each helped us at our prayers. 

The morning wind began to moan, 
But still the night went on: 



THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 251 

Through its giant loom the web of gloom 
Crept till each thread was spun : 

And, as we prayed, we grew afraid 
Of the Justice of the Sun. 

The moaning wind went wandering round 

The weeping prison-wall: 
Till like a wheel of turning steel 

We felt the minutes crawl: 
O moaning wind ! what had we done 

To have such a seneschal? 

At last I saw the shadowed bars, 
Like a lattice wrought in lead, 

Move right across the whitewashed wall 
That faced my three-planked bed, 

And I knew that somewhere in the world 
God's dreadful dawn Avas red. 



At six o'clock we cleaned our cells, 

At seven all was still, 
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing 

The prison seemed to fill, 
For the Lord of Death with icy breath 

Had entered in to kill. 

He did not pass in purple pomp, 

Nor ride a moon-white steed. 
Three yards of cord and a sliding board 

Are all the gallows' need : 



252 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 

So with rope of shame the Herald came 
To do the secret deed. 



We were as men who through a fen 

Of filthy darkness grope : 
We did not dare to breathe a prayer, 

Or to give our anguish scope: 
Something was dead in each of us, 

And what was dead was Hope. 

For Man's grim Justice goes its way, 

And will not swerve aside: 
It slays the weak, it slays the strong, 

It has a deadly stride: 
With iron heel it slays the strong, 

The monstrous parricide! 

We waited for the stroke of eight: 
Each tongue was thick with thirst: 

For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate 
That makes a man accursed, 

And Fate will use a running noose 
For the best man and the worst. 

We had no other thing to do, 

Save to wait for the sign to come: 

So, like things of stone in a valley lone, 
Quiet we sat and dumb : 

But each man's heart beat thick and quick, 
Like a madman on a drum ! 



THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 253 

With sudden shock the prison-clock 

Smote on the shivering air, 
And from all the gaol rose up a wail 

Of impotent despair, 
Like the sound that frightened marshes hear 

From some leper in his lair. 

And as one sees most fearful things 

In the crystal of a dream, 
We saw the greasy hempen rope 

Hooked to the blackened beam, 
And heard the prayer the hangman's snare 

Strangled into a scream. 

And all the woe that moved him so 

That he gave that bitter cry, 
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, 

None knew so well as I : 
For he who lives more lives than one 

More deaths than one must die. 



254 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 



IV 

rilHERE is no chapel on the day 

-■- On which they hang a man: 
The Chaplain's heart is far too sick, 

Or his face is far too wan, 
Or there is that written in his eyes 
Which none should look upon. 

So they kept us close till nigh on noon, 

And then they rang the bell, 
And the Warders with their jingling keys 

Opened each listening cell, 
And down the iron stair we tramped, 

Each from his separate Hell. 

Out into God's sweet air we went, 

But not in wonted way, 
For this man's face was white with fear, 

And that man's face was grey, 
And I never saw sad men who looked 

So wistfully at the day. 

I never saw sad men who looked 

With such a wistful eye 
Upon that little tent of blue 

We prisoners called the sky, 



THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 255 

And at every careless cloud that passed 
In happy freedom by. 

But there were those amongst us all 
Who walked with downcast head, 

And knew that, had each got his due, 
They should have died instead: 

He had but killed a thing that lived, 
Whilst they had killed the dead. 

For he who sins a second time 

Wakes a dead soul to pain, 
And draws it from its spotted shroud, 

And makes it bleed again, 
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood, 

And makes it bleed in vain! 



Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb 
With crooked arrows starred, 

Silently we went round and round 
The slippery asphalte yard; 

Silently we went round and round, 
And no man spoke a word. 

Silently we went round and round, 
And through each hollow mind 

The Memory of dreadful things 
Rushed like a dreadful wind, 

And Horror stalked before each man, 
And Terror crept behind. 



256 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 

The Warders strutted up and down, 
And kept their herd of brutes, 

Their uniforms were spick and span, 
And they wore their Sunday suits, 

But we knew the work they had been at, 
By the quicklime on their boots. 

For where a grave had opened wide, 
There was no grave at all: 

Only a stretch of mud and sand 
By the hideous prison-wall, 

And a little heap of burning lime, 
That the man should have his pall. 

For he has a pall, this wretched man, 
Such as few men can claim : 

Deep down below a prison-yard, 
Naked for greater shame, 

He lies, with fetters on each foot, 
Wrapt in a sheet of flame ! 

And all the while the burning lime 

Eats flesh and bone away, 
It eats the brittle bone by night, 

And the soft flesh by day, 
It eats the flesh and bone by turns, 

But it eats the heart alway. 



For three long years they will not sow 
Or root or seedling there : 



THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 257 

For three long years the unblessed spot 

Will sterile be and bare, 
And look upon the wondering sky 

With unreproachful stare. 

They think a murderer's heart would taint 

Each simple seed they sow. 
It is not true ! God's kindly earth 

Is kindlier than men know, 
And the red rose would but blow more red, 

The white rose whiter blow. 

Out of his mouth a red, red rose ! 

Out of his heart a white ! 
For who can say by what strange way s 

Christ brings His will to light, 
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore 

Bloomed in the great Pope's sight? 

But neither milk-white rose nor red 

May bloom in prison air; 
The shard, the pebble, and the flint, 

Are what they give us there : 
For flowers have been known to heal 

A common man's despair. 

So never will wine-red rose or white, 

Petal by petal, fall 
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies 

By the hideous prison-wall, 



258 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 

To tell the men who tramp the yard 
That God's Son died for all. 



Yet though the hideous prison-wall 
Still hems him round and round, 

And a spirit may not walk by night 
That is with fetters bound, 

And a spirit may but weep that lies 
In such unholy ground, 

He is at peace — this wretched man — 

At peace, or will be soon : 
There is no thing to make him mad, 

Nor does Terror walk at noon, 
For the lampless Earth in which he lies 

Has neither Sun nor Moon. 

They hanged him as a beast is hanged : 

They did not even toll 
A requiem that might have brought 

Rest to his startled soul, 
But hurriedly they took him out, 

And hid him in a hole. 

They stripped him of his canvas clothes, 

And gave him to the flies : 
They mocked the swollen purple throat, 

And the stark and staring eyes : 
And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud 

In which their convict lies. 



THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 259 

The Chaplain would not kneel to pray 

By his dishonoured grave: 
Nor mark it with that blessed Cross 

That Christ for sinners gave, 
Because the man was one of those 

Whom Christ came down to save. 

Yet all is well; he has but passed 

To Life's appointed bourne: 
And alien tears will fill for him 

Pity's long-broken urn, 
For his mourners will be outcast men, 

And outcasts always mourn. 



260 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 



I KNOW not whether Laws be right, 
Or whether Laws be wrong ; 
All that we know who lie in gaol 

Is that the wall is strong ; 
And that each day is like a year, 
A year whose days are long. 

But this I know, that every Law 
That men have made for Man, 

Since first Man took his brother's life, 
And the sad world began, 

But straws the wheat and saves the chaff 
With a most evil fan. 

This too I know — and wise it were 
If each could know the same — 

That every prison that men build 
Is built with bricks of shame, 

And bound with bars lest Christ should see 
How men their brothers maim. 

With bars they blur the gracious moon, 

And blind the goodly sun: 
And they do well to hide their Hell, 

For in it things are done 



THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 261 

That Son of God nor son of Man 
Ever should look upon ! 



The vilest deeds like poison weeds 

Bloom well in prison-air : 
It is only what is good in Man 

That wastes and withers there: 
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate, 

And the Warder is Despair. 

For they starve the little frightened child 
Till it weeps both night and day : 

And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool, 
And gibe the old and gray, 

And some grow mad, and all grow bad, 
And none a word may say. 

Each narrow cell in which we dwell 

Is a foul and dark latrine, 
And the fetid breath of living Death 

Chokes up each grated screen, 
And all, but Lust, is turned to dust 

In Humanity's machine. 

The brackish water that we drink 

Creeps with a loathsome slime, 
And the bitter bread they weigh in scales 

Is full of chalk and lime, 
And Sleep will not lie down, but walks 

Wild-eyed, and cries to Time. 



262 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 

But though lean Hunger and green Thirst 

Like asp with adder fight, 
We have little care of prison fare, 

For what chills and kills outright 
Is that every stone one lifts by day 

Becomes one's heart by night. 

With midnight always in one's heart, 

And twilight in one's cell, 
We turn the crank, or tear the rope, 

Each in his separate Hell, 
And the silence is more awful far 

Than the sound of a brazen bell. 

And never a human voice comes near 

To speak a gentle word : 
And the eye that watches through the door 

Is pitiless and hard : 
And by all forgot, we rot and rot, 

With soul and body marred. 

And thus we rust Life's iron chain 

Degraded and alone : 
And some men curse, and some men weep, 

And some men make no moan: 
But God's eternal Laws are kind 

And break the heart of stone. 



And every human heart that breaks, 
In prison-cell or yard, 



prison-cell or yard, 



THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 263 

Is as that broken box that gave 

Its treasure to the Lord, 
And filled the unclean leper's house 

With the scent of costliest nard. 

Ah! happy they whose hearts can break 

And peace of pardon win! 
How else may man make straight his plan 

And cleanse his soul from Sin? 
How else but through a broken heart 

May Lord Christ enter in? 

And he of the swollen purple throat, 
And the stark and staring eyes, 

Waits for the holy hands that took 
The Thief to Paradise ; 

And a broken and a contrite heart 
The Lord will not despise. 

The man in red who reads the Law 

Gave him three weeks of life, 
Three little weeks in which to heal 

His soul of his soul's strife, 
And cleanse from every blot of blood 

The hand that held the knife. 

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand, 

The hand that held the steel: 
For only blood can wipe out blood, 

And only tears can heal: 
And the crimson stain that was of Cain 

Became Christ's snow-white . seal. 



264 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL 



VI 

IN Reading gaol by Reading town 
There is a pit of shame, 
And in it lies a wretched man 

Eaten by teeth of flame, 
In a burning winding-sheet he lies, 
And his grave has got no name. 

And there, till Christ call forth the dead, 

In silence let him lie: 
No need to waste the foolish tear, 

Or heave the windy sigh: 
The man had killed the thing he loved, 

And so he had to die. 

And all men kill the thing they love, 

By all let this be heard, 
Some do it with a bitter look, 

Some with a flattering word, 
The coward does it with a kiss, 

The brave man with a sword! 

C. 3. 3. 



UNCOLLECTED POEMS 



FROM SPRING DAYS TO WINTER 

(for music) 

IN the glad spring time when leaves were green, 
O merrily the throstle sings f 
I sought, amid the tangled sheen, 
Love whom mine eyes had never seen, 
O the glad dove has golden wings ! 

Between the blossoms red and white, 

O merrily the throstle sings ! 
My love first came into my sight, 
O perfect vision of delight, 

O the glad dove has golden wings! 

The yellow apples glowed like fire, 

O merrily the throstle sings ! 
O Love too great for lip or lyre, 
Blown rose of love and of desire, 

O the glad dove has golden wings ! 

But now with snow the tree is grey, 

Ah, sadly now the throstle sings ! 
My love is dead: ah! well-a-day, 
See at her silent feet I lay 

A dove with broken wings ! 

Ah, Love ! ah, Love ! that thou wert slain — 
Fond Dove, fond Dove return again ! 
267 



268 UNCOLLECTED POEMS 



AYXivov a'Ouvov el%£ t& §' e5 vcxoctoj 

OWELL for him who lives at ease 
With garnered gold in wide domain, 
Nor heeds the splashing of the rain, 
The crashing down of forest trees. 

O well for him who ne'er hath known 
The travail of the hungry years, 
A father grey with grief and tears, 

A mother weeping all alone. 

But well for him whose foot hath trod 
The weary road of toil and strife, 
Yet from the sorrows of his life 

Builds ladders to be nearer God. 



UNCOLLECTED POEMS 269 



THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE 

. . . dvayxac'ox; §' e^st 

(it'ov OzgiCeiy ioaxe xdcpiufiov axa/uv, 
Y.aX t^jv [asv etvca xov Se jjltj. 

THOU knowest all ; I seek in vain 
What lands to till or sow with seed- 
The leaid is black with brier and weed, 
Nor cares for falling tears or rain. 

Thou knowest all ; I sit and wait 

With blinded eyes and hands that fail, 
Till the last lifting of the veil 

And the first opening of the gate. 

Thou knowest all ; I cannot see. 
I trust I shall not live in vain, 
I know that we shall meet again 

In some divine eternuy. 



270 UNCOLLECTED POEMS 



LOTUS LEAVES 

vetisffjwtJiaf ye [lev ou§£v 
xXai'etv bq xe Odvyjat Ppotwv xat 7c6t[aov exfaiqo, 
tout6 vu xal yipixq olov 6'i'^upoiac @poxocai 
xefpaa6af te x6[at)v paXdetv t' dcxb S&xpu TOZpeiwv. 

THERE is no peace beneath the noon. 
Ah ! in those meadows is there peace 
Where, girdled with a silver fleece, 
As a bright shepherd, strays the moon? 

Queen of the gardens of the sky, 

Where stars like lilies, white and fair, 
Shine through the mists of frosty air, 

Oh, tarry, for the dawn is nigh! 

Oh, tarry, for the envious day 

Stretches long hands to catch thy feet. 

Alas ! but thou art overfleet, 
Alas ! I know thou wilt not stay. 

Up sprang the sun to run his race, 

The breeze blew fair on meadow and lea ; 
But in the west I seemed to see 

-The likeness of a human face. 



UNCOLLECTED POEMS 271 

A linnet on the hawthorn spray 
Sang of the glories of the spring, 
And made the flow'ring copses ring 

With gladness for the new-born day. 

A lark from out the grass I trod 

Flew wildly, and was lost to view 

In the great seamless veil of blue 
That hangs before the face of God. 

The willow whispered overhead 
That death is but a newer life, 
And that with idle words of strife 

We bring dishonour on the dead. 

I took a branch from off the tree, 

And hawthorn-blossoms drenched with dew, 
I bound them with a sprig of yew, 

And made a garland fair to see. 

I laid the flowers where He lies, 

(Warm leaves and flowers on the stone;) 
What joy I had to sit alone 

Till evening broke on tired eyes : 

Till all the shifting clouds had spun 

A robe of gold for God to wear, 

And into seas of purple air 
Sank the bright galley of the sun. 



272 UNCOLLECTED POEMS 

Shall I be gladdened for the day, 
And let my inner heart be stirred 
By murmuring tree or song of bird, 

And sorrow at the wild wind's play? 

Not so : such idle dreams belong 

To souls of lesser depth than mine ; 
I feel that I am half divine ; 

I know that I am great and strong. 

I know that every forest tree 
By labour rises from the root ; 
I know that none shall gather fruit 

By sailing on the barren sea. 



UNCOLLECTED POEMS 273 



WASTED DAYS 

(from a picture painted by miss v. t.) 

A FAIR slim boy not made for this world's pain, 
With hair of gold thick clustering round his ears, 
And longing eyes half veiled by foolish tears 
Like bluest water seen through mists of rain ; 
Pale cheeks whereon no kiss hath left its stain, 
Red under-lip drawn in for fear of Love, 
And white throat whiter than the breast of dove — 
Alas ! alas ! if all should be in vain. 

Corn-fields behind, and reapers all a-row 
In weariest labour, toiling wearily, 
To no sweet sound of laughter, or of lute; 

And careless of the crimson sunset-glow 

The boy still dreams : nor knows that night is nigh : 
And in the night-time no man gathers fruit. 



274 UNCOLLECTED POEMS 



IMPRESSIONS 

I 
LE JARDIN 

THE lily's withered chalice falls 
Around its rod of dusty gold, 
And from the beech-trees on the wold 
The last wood-pigeon coos and calls. 

The gaudy leonine sunflower 

Hangs black and barren on its stalk, 
And down the windy garden walk 

The dead leaves scatter, — hour by hour. 

Pale privet-petals white as milk 
Are blown into a snowy mass : 
The roses lie upon the grass 

Like little shreds of crimson silk. 



UNCOLLECTED POEMS 275 



II 
LA MER 

A WHITE mist drifts across the shrouds, 
A wild moon in this wintry sky 
Gleams like an angry lion's eye 
Out of -a mane of tawny clouds. 

The muffled steersman at the wheel 
Is but a shadow in the gloom ; — 
And in the throbbing engine room 

Leap the long rods of polished steel. 

The shattered storm has left its trace 
Upon this huge and heaving dome, 
For the thin threads of yellow foam 

Float on the waves like ravelled lace, 



276 UNCOLLECTED POEMS 



UNDER THE BALCONY 

O BEAUTIFUL star with the crimson mouth! 
O moon with the brows of gold ! 
Rise up, rise up, from the odorous south ! 
And light for my love her way, 
Lest her little feet should stray 
On the windy hill and the wold! 
O beautiful star with the crimson mouth! 
O moon with the brows of gold ! 

O ship that shakes on the desolate sea! 

O ship with the wet, white sail ! 
Put in, put in, to the port to me! 
For my love and I would go 
To the land where the daffodils blow 
In the heart of a violet dale ! 
O ship that shakes on the desolate sea ! 
O ship with the wet, white sail! 

O rapturous bird with the low, sweet note ! 

O bird that sings on the spray ! 
Sing on, sing on, from your soft brown throat! 
And my love in her little bed 
Will -listen, and lift her head 
From the pillow, and come my way! 
O rapturous bird with the low, sweet note ! 
O bird that sits on the spray ! 



UNCOLLECTED POEMS 277 

O blossom that hangs in the tremulous air! 

O blossom with lips of snow! 
Come down, come down, for my love to wear! 
You will die on her head in a crown, 
You will die in a fold of her gown, 
To her little light heart you will go! 
O blossom that hangs in the tremulous air! 
O blossom with lips of snow! 



278 UNCOLLECTED POEMS 



THE HARLOT'S HOUSE 

WE caught the tread of dancing feet, 
We loitered down the moonlit street, 
And stopped beneath the harlot's house. 

Inside, above the din and fray, 
We heard the loud musicians play 
The "Treues Liebes Herz" of Strauss. 

Like strange mechanical grotesques, 
Making fantastic arabesques, 
The shadows raced across the blind. 

We watched the ghostly dancers spin 

To sound of horn and violin, 

Like black leaves wheeling in the wind. 

Like wire-pulled automatons, 

Slim silhouetted skeletons 

Went sidling through the slow quadrille. 

They took each other by the hand, 
And danced a stately saraband; 
Their laughter echoed thin and shrill. 

Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed 
A phantom lover to her breast, 
.Sometimes they seemed to try to sing. 



UNCOLLECTED POEMS 279 

Sometimes a horrible marionette 
Came out, and smoked its cigarette 
Upon the steps like a live thing. 

Then, turning to my love, I said, 
"The dead are dancing with the dead, 
The dust is whirling with the dust." 

But she — she heard the violin, 
And left my side, and entered in : 
Love passed into the house of lust. 

Then suddenly the tune went false, 
The dancers wearied of the waltz, 
The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl. 

And down the long and silent street, 
The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet, 
Crept like a frightened girl. 



280 UNCOLLECTED POEMS 



LE JARDIN DES TUILERIES 

THIS winter air is keen and cold, 
And keen and cold this winter sun, 
But round my chair the children run 
Like little things of dancing gold. 

Sometimes about the painted kiosk 
The mimic soldiers strut and stride, 
Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hide 

In the bleak tangles of the bosk. 

And sometimes, while the old nurse cons 
Her book, they steal across the square, 
And launch their paper navies where 

Huge Triton writhes in greenish bronze. 

And now in mimic flight they flee, 

And now they rush, a boisterous band — 
And, tiny hand on tiny hand, 

Climb up the black and leafless tree. 

Ah ! cruel tree ! if I were you, 

And children climbed me, for their sake 
Though it be winter I would break 

Into spring blossoms white and blue! 



UNCOLLECTED POEMS 281 



ON THE RECENT SALE BY AUCTION OF 
KEATS' LOVE LETTERS 

THESE are the letters which Endymion wrote 
To one he loved in secret, and apart. 
And now the brawlers of the auction mart 
Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note, 
Aye! for each separate pulse of passion quote 
The merchant's price. I think they love not art 
Who break the crystal of a poet's heart 
That small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat. 

Is it not said that many years ago, 

In a far Eastern town, some soldiers ran 
With torches through the midnight, and began 

To wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw 
Dice for the garments of a wretched man, 

Not knowing the God's wonder, or His woe? 



282 UNCOLLECTED POEMS 



THE NEW REMORSE 

THE sin was mine ; I did not understand. 
So now is music prisoned in her cave, 

Save where some ebbing desultory wave 
Frets with its restless whirls this meagre strand. 
And in the withered hollow of this land 

Hath summer dug herself so deep a grave, 

That hardly can the leaden willow crave 
One silver blossom from keen winter's hand. 
But who is this who cometh by the shore? 
(Nay, love, look up and wonder!) Who is this 

Who cometh in dyed garments from the South? 
It is thy new-found Lord, and he shall kiss 

The yet unravished roses of thy mouth, 
And I shall weep and worship, as before. 



UNCOLLECTED POEMS 283 



FANTAISIES DECORATIVES 

I 

LE PANNEAU 

UNDER the rose-tree's dancing shade 
There stands a little ivory girl, 
Pulling the leaves of pink and pearl 
With pale green nails of polished jade. 

The red leaves fall upon the mould, 
The white leaves flutter, one by one, 
Down to a blue bowl where the sun, 

Like a great dragon, writhes in gold. 

The white leaves float upon the air, 
The red leaves flutter idly down, 
Some fall upon her yellow gown, 

And some upon her raven hair. 

She takes an amber lute and sings, 
And as she sings a silver crane 
Begins his scarlet neck to strain, 

And flap his burnished metal wings. 



284 UNCOLLECTED POEMS 

She takes a lute of amber bright, 
And from the thicket where he lies 
Her lover, with his almond eyes, 

Watches her movements in delight. 

And now she gives a cry of fear, 
And tiny tears begin to start ; 
A thorn has wounded with its dart 

The pink -veined sea-shell of her ear. 

And now she laughs a merry note : 
There has fallen a petal of the rose 
Just where the yellow satin shows 

The blue-veined flower of her throat. 

With pale green nails of polished jade, 
Pulling the leaves of pink and pearl, 
There stands a little ivory girl 

Under the rose-tree's dancing shade. 



UNCOLLECTED POEMS 285 

II 

LES BALLONS 

AGAINST these turbid turquoise skies 
The light and luminous balloons 
Dip and drift like satin moons, 
Drift like silken butterflies ; 

Reel with every windy gust, 

Rise and reel like dancing girls, 
Float like strange transparent pearls, 

Fall and float like silver dust. 

Now to the low leaves they cling, 

Each with coy fantastic pose, 

Each a petal of a rose 
Straining at a gossamer string. 

Then to the tall trees they climb, 

Like thin globes of amethyst, 

Wandering opals keeping tryst 
With the rubies of the lime. 



286 UNCOLLECTED POEMS 



CANZONET 

I HAVE no store 
Of gryphon-guarded gold; 
Now, as before, 
Bare is the shepherd's fold. 

Rubies, nor pearls, 
Have I to gem thy throat; 

Yet woodland girls 
Have loved the shepherd's note. 

Then, pluck a reed 
And bid me sing to thee, 

For I would feed 
Thine ears with melody, 

Who art more fair 
Than fairest fleur-de-lys, 

More sweet and rare 
Than sweetest ambergris. 

What dost thou fear? 
Young Hyacinth is slain, 

Pan is not here, 
And will not come again. 

No horned Faun 
Treads down the yellow leas, 

No God at dawn 
Steals through the olive-trees. 



UNCOLLECTED POEMS 287 

Hylas is dead, 
Nor will lie e'er divine 

Those little red 
Rose-petalled lips of thine. 

On the high hill 
No ivory dryads play, 

Silver and still 
Sinks the sad autumn day. 



288 UNCOLLECTED POEMS 



SYMPHONY IN YELLOW 

AN omnibus across the bridge 
Crawls like a yellow butterfly, 
And, here and there, a passer-by 
Shows like a little restless midge. 

Big barges full of yellow hay 

Are moved against the shadowy wharf, 
And, like a yellow silken scarf, 

The thick fog hangs along the quay. 

The yellow leaves begin to fade 

And flutter from the Temple elms, 
And at my feet the pale green Thames 

Lies like a rod of rippled jade. 



UNCOLLECTED POEMS 289 



IN THE FOREST 

OUT of the mid- wood's twilight 
Into the meadow's dawn, 
Ivory limbed and brown-eyed, 
Flashes my Faun! 

He skips through the copses singing, 
And his shadow dances along, 

And I know not which I should follow, 
Shadow or song! 

O Hunter, snare me his shadow ! 

Nightingale, catch me his strain! 
Else moonstruck with music and madness 

1 track him in vain! 



290 UNCOLLECTED POEMS 



WITH A COPY OF "A HOUSE OF 
POMEGRANATES" 

GO, little book, 
To him who, on a lute with horns of pearl, 
Sang of the white feet of the Golden Girl: 
And bid him look 

Into thy pages : it may hap that he 
May find that golden maidens dance through thee. 



UNCOLLECTED POEMS 291 



TO L. L. 

COULD we dig up this long-buried treasure, 
Were it worth the pleasure, 
We never could learn love's song, 
We are parted too long. 

Could the passionate past that is fled 

Call back its dead, 
Could we live it all over again, 

Were it worth the pain ! 

I remember we used to meet 

By an ivied seat, 
And you warbled each pretty word 

With the air of a bird ; 

And your voice had a quaver in it, 

Just like a linnet, 
And shook, as the blackbird's throat 

With its last big note; 

And your eyes, they were green and grey 

Like an April day, 
But lit into amethyst 

When I stooped and kissed ; 



292 UNCOLLECTED POEMS 

And your mouth, it would never smile 

For a long, long while, 
Then it rippled all over with laughter 

Five minutes after. 

You were always afraid of a shower, 

Just like a flower : 
I remember you started and ran 

When the rain began. 

I remember I never could catch you, 
For no one could match you, 

You had wonderful, luminous, fleet, 
Little wings to your feet. 

I remember your hair — did I tie it? 

For it always ran riot — 
Like a tangled sunbeam of gold: 

These things are old. 

I remember so well the room, 

And the lilac bloom 
That beat at the dripping pane 

In the warm June rain ; 

And the colour of your gown, 

It was amber-brown, 
And two yellow satin bows 

From your shoulders rose. 



UNCOLLECTED POEMS 293 

And the handkerchief of French lace 

Which you held to your face — 
Had a small tear left a stain? 

Or was it the rain? 

On your hand as it waved adieu, 

There were veins of blue ; 
In your voice as it said good-bye 

Was a petulant cry, 

"You have only wasted your life." 

(Ah, that was the knife!) 
When I rushed through the garden gate 

It was all too late. 

Could we live it over again, 

Were it worth the pain, 
Could the passionate past that is fled 

Call back its dead ! 

Well, if my heart must break, 

Dear love, for your sake, 
It will break in music, I know, 

Poets' hearts break so. 

But strange that I was not told 

That the brain can hold 
In a tiny ivory cell 

God's heaven and hell. 



POEMS IN PROSE 



THE ARTIST 

ONE evening there came into his soul the desire to 
fashion an image of The Pleasure that abideth for 
a Moment. And he went forth into the world to look 
for bronze. For he could only think in bronze. 

But all the bronze of the whole world had disap- 
peared, nor anywhere in the whole world was there any 
bronze to be found, save only the bronze of the image of 
The Sorrow that endureth for Ever. 

Now this image he had himself, and with his own 
hands, fashioned, and had set it on the tomb of the one 
thing he had loved in life. On the tomb of the dead 
thing he had most loved had he set this image of his 
own fashioning, that it might serve as a sign of the love 
of man that dieth not, and a symbol of the sorrow of man 
that endureth for ever. And in the whole world there 
was no other bronze save the bronze of this image. 

And he took the image he had fashioned, and set it in 
a great furnace, and gave it to the fire. 

And out of the bronze of the image of The Sorrow that 
endureth for Ever he fashioned an image of The Pleas- 
ure that abideth for a Moment. 



297 



298 POEMS IN PROSE 



II 

THE DOER OF GOOD 

T T was night-time and He was alone. 

■■■ And He saw afar-off the walls of a round city and 

went towards the city. 

And when He came near He heard within the city the 
tread of the feet of joy, and the laughter of the mouth 
of gladness and the loud noise of many lutes. And He 
knocked at the gate and certain of the gate-keepers 
opened to him. 

And He beheld a house that was of marble and had 
fair pillars of marble before it. The pillars were hung 
with garlands, and within and without there were torches 
of cedar. And He entered the house. 

And when He had passed through the hall of chalce- 
dony and the hall of jasper, and reached the long hall of 
feasting, He saw lying on a couch of sea-purple one 
whose hair was crowned with red roses and whose lips 
were red with wine. 

And He went behind him and touched him on the 
shoulder and said to him, "Why do you live like this ?" 

And the young man turned round and recognised 
Him, and made answer and said, "But I was a leper once, 
and you healed me. How else should I live?" 



POEMS IN PROSE 299 

And He passed out of the house and went again into 
the street. 

And after a little while He saw one 'whose face and 
raiment were painted and whose feet were shod with 
pearls. And behind her came, slowly as a hunter, a 
young man who wore a cloak of two colours. Now the 
face of the woman was as the fair face of an idol, and the 
eyes of the young man were bright with lust. 

And He followed swiftly and touched the hand of the 
young man and said to him, "Why do you look at this 
woman and in such wise?" 

And the young man turned round and recognised Him 
and said, "But I was blind once, and you gave me sight. 
At what else should I look?" 

And He ran forward and touched the painted raiment 
of the woman and said to her, "Is there no other way in 
which to walk save the way of sin?" 

And the woman turned round and recognised Him, 
and laughed and said, "But you forgave me my sins, and 
the way is a pleasant way." 

And He passed out of the city. 

And when He had passed out of the city He saw 
seated by the roadside a young man who> was weeping. 

And He went towards him and touched the long locks 
of his hair and said to him, "Why are you weeping?" 

And the young man looked up and recognised Him 
and made answer, "But I was dead once and you raised 
me from the dead. What else should I do but weep?" 



300 POEMS IN PROSE 

III 
THE DISCIPLE 

WHEN Narcissus died the pool of his pleasure 
changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup 
of salt tears, and the Oreads came weeping through the 
woodland that they might sing to the pool and give it 
comfort. 

And when they saw that the pool had changed from a 
cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, they loos- 
ened the green tresses of their hair and crhd to the pool 
and said, "We do not wonder that you should mourn in 
this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was he." 

"But was Narcissus beautiful?" said the pool. 

"Who should know that better than you?" answered 
the Oreads. "Us did he ever pass by, but you he sought 
for, and would lie on your banks and look down at you, 
and in the mirror of your waters he would mirror his 
own beauty." 

And the pool answered, "But I loved Narcissus be- 
cause, as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, 
in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own beauty 
mirrored." 



POEMS IN PROSE 301 



IV 

THE MASTER 

NOW when the darkness came over the earth Joseph 
of Arimathea, having lighted a torch of pinewood, 
passed down from the hill into the valley. For he had 
business in his own home. 

And kneeling on the flint stones of the Valley of Deso- 
lation he saw a young man who was naked and weeping. 
His hair was the colour of honey, and his body was as a 
white flower, but he had wounded his body with thorns 
and on his hair had he set ashes as a crown. 

And he who had great possessions said to the young 
man who was naked and weeping, "I do not wonder that 
your sorrow is so great, for surely He was a just man." 

And the young man answered, "It is not for Him that 
I am weeping, but for myself. I too have changed water 
into wine, and I have healed the leper and given sight to 
the blind. I have walked upon the waters, and from the 
dwellers in the tombs I have cast out devils. I have fed 
the hungry in the desert where there was no food, and I 
have raised the dead from their narrow houses, and at my 
bidding, and before a great multitude of people, a barren 
fig-tree withered away. All things that this man has 
done I have done also. And yet they have not crucified 
me." 



302 POEMS IN PROSE 



THE HOUSE OF JUDGMENT 

AND there was silence in the House of Judgment, 
and the Man came naked before God. 

And God opened the Book of the Life of the Man. 

And God said to the Man, "Thy life hath been evil, 
and thou hast shown cruelty to those who were in need 
of succour, and to those who lacked help thou hast been 
bitter and hard of heart. The poor called to thee and 
thou did'st not hearken, and thine ears were closed to 
the cry of My afflicted. The inheritance of the father- 
less thou did'st take unto thyself, and thou did'st send 
the foxes into the vineyard of thy neighbour's field. 
Thou did'st take the bread of the children and give it to 
the dogs to eat, and my lepers who lived in the marshes, 
and were at peace and praised Me, thou did'st drive 
forth on to the highways, and on Mine earth out of 
which I made thee thou did'st spill innocent blood." 

And the Man made answer and said, "Even so did I." 

And again God opened the Book of the Life of the 
Man. 

And God said to the Man, "Thy life hath been evil, 
and the Beauty I have shown thou hast sought for, and 
the Good I have hidden thou did'st pass by. The walls 
of thy chamber were painted with images, and from the 



POEMS IN PROSE 303 

bed of thine abominations thou did'st rise up to the 
sound of flutes. Thou did'st build seven altars to the 
sins I have suffered, and did'st eat of the thing that may 
not be eaten, and the purple of thy raiment was broid- 
ered with the three signs of shame. Thine idols were 
neither of gold nor of silver that endure, but of flesh that 
dieth. Thou did'st stain their hair with perfumes and 
put pomegranates in their hands. Thou did'st stain 
their feet with saffron and spread carpets before them. 
With antimony thou did'st stain their eyelids and their 
bodies thou didst smear with myrrh. Thou did'st bow 
thyself to the ground before them, and the thrones of 
thine idols were set in the sun. Thou did'st show to 
the sun thy shame and to the moon thy madness." 

And the Man made answer and said, "Even so did I." 
And a third time God opened the Book of the Life of 
the Man. 

And God said to the Man, "Evil hath been thy life, 
and with evil did'st thou requite good, and with wrong- 
doing kindness. The hands that fed thee thou did'st 
wound, and the breasts that gave thee suck thou did'st 
despise. He who came to thee with water went away 
thirsting, and the outlawed men who laid thee in their 
tents at night thou did'st betray before dawn. Thine 
enemy who spared thee thou did'st snare in an ambush, 
and the friend who walked with thee thou did'st sell for 
a price, and to those who brought thee Love thou did'st 
ever give Lust in thy turn." 

And the Man made answer and said, "Even so did I." 
And God closed the Book of the Life of the Man, and 



304 POEMS IN PROSE 

said, "Surely I will send thee into Hell. Even into Hell 
will I send thee." 

And the Man cried out, "Thou canst not." 

And God said to the Man, "Wherefore can I not send 
thee to Hell, and for what reason?" 

"Because in Hell have I always lived," answered the 
Man. 

And there was silence in the House of Judgment. 

And after a space God spake, and said to the Man, 
"Seeing that I may not send thee into Hell, surely I will 
send thee unto Heaven. Even unto Heaven will I send 
thee." 

And the Man cried out, "Thou canst not." 

And God said to the Man, "Wherefore can I not send 
thee unto Heaven, and for what reason?" 

"Because never, and in no place, have I been able to 
imagine it," answered the Man. 

And there was silence in the House of Judgment. 



POEMS IN PROSE 305 

VI 
THE TEACHER OF WISDOM 

FROM his childhood he had been as one filled with 
the perfect knowledge of God, and even while he 
was yet but a lad many of the saints, as well as certain 
holy women who dwelt in the free city of his birth, had 
been stirred to much wonder by the grave wisdom of his 
answers. 

And when his parents had given him the robe and the 
ring of manhood he kissed them, and left them and went 
out into the world, that he might speak to the world 
about God. For there were at that time many in the 
world who either knew not God at all, or had but an 
incomplete knowledge of Him, or worshipped the false 
gods who dwell in groves and have no care of their 
worshippers. 

And he set his face to the sun and journeyed, walking 
without sandals, as he had seen the saints walk, and 
carrying at his girdle a leathern wallet and a little 
water-bottle of burnt clay. 

And as he walked along the highway he was full of the 
joy that comes from the perfect knowledge of God, and 
he sang praises unto God without ceasing; and after a 
time he reached a strange land in which there were many 
cities. 

And he passed through eleven cities. And some of 



306 POEMS IN PROSE 

these cities were in valleys, and others were by the banks 
of great rivers, and others were set on hills. And in 
each city he found a disciple who loved him and followed 
him, and a great multitude also of people followed him 
from each city, and the knowledge of God spread in the 
whole land, and many of the rulers were converted, and 
the priests of the temples in which there were idols found 
that half of their gain was gone, and when they beat 
upon their drums at noon none, or but a few, came with 
peacocks and with offerings of flesh as had been the 
custom of the land before his coming. 

Yet the more the people followed him, and the greater 
the number of his disciples, the greater became his sor- 
row. And he knew not why his sorrow was so great. 
For he spake ever about God, and out of the fulness of 
that perfect knowledge of God which God had himself 
given to him. 

And one evening he passed out of the eleventh city, 
which was a city of Armenia, and his disciples and a 
great crowd of people followed after him; and he went 
up on to a mountain and sat down on a rock that was on 
the mountain, and his disciples stood round him, and the 
multitude knelt in the valley. 

And he bowed his head on his hands and wept, and 
said to his Soul, "Why is it that I am full of sorrow and 
fear, and that each of my disciples is as an enemy that 
walks in the noonday ?" 

And his Soul answered him and said, "God filled thee 
with the perfect knowledge of Himself, and thou hast 
given this knowledge away to others. The pearl of great 



POEMS IN PROSE 307 

price thou hast divided, and the vesture without seam 
thou hast parted asunder. He who giveth away wisdom 
robbeth himself. He is as one who giveth his treasure 
to a robber. Is not God wiser than thou art? Who art 
thou to give away the secret that God hath told thee ? I 
was rich once, and thou hast made me poor. Once I saw 
God, and now thou hast hidden Him from me." 

And he wept again, for he knew that his Soul spake 
truth to him, and that he had given to others the perfect 
knowledge of God, and that he was as one clinging to the 
skirts of God, and that his faith was leaving him by rea- 
son of the number of those who believed in him. 

And he said to himself, "I will talk no more about 
God. He who giveth away wisdom robbeth himself." 

And after the space of some hours his disciples came 
near him and bowed themselves to the ground and said, 
"Master, talk to us about God, for thou hast the perfect 
knowledge of God, and no man save thee hath this 
knowledge." 

And he answered them and said, "I will talk to you 
about all other things that are in heaven and on earth, 
but about God I will not talk to you. Neither now, nor 
at any time, will I talk to you about God." 

And they were wroth with him and said to him, "Thou 
hast led us into the desert that we might hearken to thee. 
Wilt thou send us away hungry, and the great multitude 
that thou hast made to follow thee?" 

And he answered them and said, "I will not talk to you 
about God." 

And the multitude murmured against him and said to 



308 POEMS IN PROSE 

him, "Thou hast led us into the desert, and hast given us 
no food to eat. Talk to us about God and it will suffice 
us." 

But he answered them not a word. For he knew that 
if he spake to them about God he would give away his 
treasure. 

And his disciples went away sadly, and the multitude 
of people returned to their own homes. And many died 
on the way. 

And when he was alone he rose up and set his face to 
the moon, and journeyed for seven moons, speaking to no 
man nor making any answer. And when the seventh 
moon had waned he reached that desert which is the 
desert of the Great River. And having found a cavern 
in which a Centaur had once dwelt, he took it for his 
place of dwelling, and made himself a mat of reeds on 
which to lie, and became a hermit. And every hour the 
Hermit praised God that He had suffered him to keep 
some knowledge of Him and of His wonderful greatness. 

Now, one evening, as the Hermit was seated before the 
cavern in which he had made his place of dwelling, he 
beheld a young man of evil and beautiful face who passed 
by in mean apparel and with empty hands. Every even- 
ing with empty hands the young man passed by, and 
every morning he returned with his hands full of purple 
and pearls. For he was a Robber and robbed the cara- 
vans of the merchants. 

And the Hermit looked at him and pitied him. But he 
spake not a word. For he knew that he who speaks a 
word loses his faith. 



POEMS IN PROSE 309 

And one morning, as the young man returned with his 
hands full of purple and pearls, he stopped and frowned 
and stamped his foot upon the sand, and said to the 
Hermit : "Why do you look at me ever in this manner as 
I pass by ? What is it that I see in your eyes ? For no 
man has looked at me before in this manner. And the 
thing is a thorn and a trouble to me." 

And the Hermit answered him and said, "What you 
see in my eyes is pity. Pity is what looks out at you 
from my eyes." 

And the young man laughed with scorn, and cried to 
the Hermit in a bitter voice, and said to him, "I have 
purple and pearls in my hands, and you have but a mat 
of reeds on which to lie. What pity should you have for 
me? And for what reason have you this pity?" 

"I have pity for you," said the Hermit, "because you 
have no knowledge of God." 

"Is this knowledge of God a precious thing?" asked 
the young man, and he came close to the mouth of the 
cavern. 

"It is more precious than all the purple and the pearls 
of the world," answered the Hermit. 

"And have you got it?" said the young Robber and 
he came closer still. 

"Once, indeed," answered the Hermit, "I possessed 
the perfect knowledge of God. But in my foolishness I 
parted with it, and divided it amongst others. Yet even 
now is such knowledge as remains to me more precious 
than purple or pearls." 

And when the young Robber heard this he threw away 



310 POEMS IN PROSE 

the purple and the pearls that he was bearing in his 
hands, and drawing a sharp sword of curved steel he said 
to the Hermit, "Give me, forthwith, this knowledge of 
God that you possess, or I will surely slay you. Where- 
fore should I not slay him who has a treasure greater 
than my treasure?" 

And the Hermit spread out his arms and said, "Were 
it not better for me to go unto the outermost courts of 
God and praise Him, than to live in the world and have 
no knowledge of Him? Slay me if that be your desire. 
But I will not give away my knowledge of God." 

And the young Robber knelt down and besought him, 
but the Hermit would not talk to him about God, nor 
give him his Treasure, and the young Robber rose up 
and said to the Hermit, "Be it as you will. As for my- 
self, I will go to the City of the Seven Sins, that is but 
three days' journey from tins place, and for my purple 
they will give me pleasure, and for my pearls they will 
sell me joy." And he took up the purple and the pearls 
and went swiftly away. 

And the Hermit cried out and followed him and be- 
sought him. For the space of three days he followed the 
young Robber on the road and entreated him to return, 
nor to enter into the City of the Seven Sins. 

And ever and anon the young Robber looked back at 
the Hermit and called to him, and said, "Will you give 
me this knowledge of God which is more precious than 
purple and pearls ? If you will give me that, I will not 
enter the city." 

And- ever did the Hermit answer, "All things that I 



POEMS IN PROSE 311 

have I will give thee, save that one thing only. For that 
thing it is not lawful for me to give away." 

And in the twilight of the third day they came nigh 
to the great scarlet gates of the City of the Seven Sins. 
And from the city there came the sound of much 
laughter. 

And the young Robber laughed in answer, and sought 
to knock at the gate. And as he did so the Hermit ran 
forward and caught him by the skirts of his raiment, and 
said to him: "Stretch forth your hands, and set your 
arms around my neck, and put your ear close to my lips, 
and I will give you what remains to me of the knowledge 
of God." And the young Robber stopped. 

And when the Hermit had given away his knowledge 
of God, he fell upon the ground and wept, and a great 
darkness hid from him the city and the young Robber, so 
that he saw them no more. 

And as he lay there weeping he was ware of One who 
was standing beside him ; and He who was standing be- 
side him had feet of brass and hair like fine wool. And 
He raised the Hermit up, and said to him : "Before this 
time thou had'st the perfect knowledge of God. Now 
thou shalt have the perfect love of God. Wherefore art 
thou weeping?" And He kissed him. 



TRANSLATIONS 



CHORUS OF CLOUD MAIDENS 

('Apiai;o<p<*vou<; NsqjeXat, 275-290, 298-313) 
STPO«l>H 

CLOUD maidens that float on for ever, 
Dew-sprinkled, fleet bodies, and fair, 
Let us rise from our Sire's loud river, 
Great Ocean, and soar through the air 
To the peaks of the pine-covered mountains where 
the pines hang as tresses of hair, 
Let us seek the watch-towers undaunted, 

Where the well-watered corn-fields abound, 
And through murmurs of rivers nymph-haunted 
The songs of the sea-waves resound; 
And the sun in the sky never wearies of spreading 
his radiance around. 

Let us cast off the haze 

Of the mists from our band, 
Till with far-seeing gaze 
We may look on the land. 



315 



316 TRANSLATIONS 



ANTISTPCXM 

Cloud maidens that bring the rain-shower, 

To the Pallas-loved land let us wing, 
To the land of stout heroes and Power, 

Where Kekrops was hero and king, 
Where honour and silence is given 

To the mysteries that none may declare, 
Where are gifts to the high gods in heaven 

When the house of the gods is laid bare, 
Where are lofty roofed temples, and statues well 
carven and fair; 

Where are feasts to the happy immortals 
When the sacred procession draws near, 

Where garlands make bright the bright portals 
At all seasons and months in the year ; 

And when spring days are here, 
Then we tread to the wine-god a measure, 

In Bacchanal dance and in pleasure, 
'Mid the contests of sweet singing choirs, 

And the crash of loud lyres. 



TRANSLATIONS 317 

0PHNQIAIA 

(Eur. Hec, 444-483) 

Song sung by captive women of Troy on the sea beach at Aulis, 
while the Achasans were there storm-bound through the wrath of 
dishonoured Achilles, and waiting for a fair wind to bring them 
home. 



o 



STPO«J>H 

FAIR wind blowing from the sea ! 
Who through the dark and mist dost guide 
The ships that on the billows ride, 

Unto what land, ah, misery ! 
Shall I be borne, across what stormy wave, 
Or to whose house a purchased slave? 

O sea-wind blowing fair and fast 
Is it unto the Dorian strand, 

Or to those far and fabled shores, 
Where great Apidanus outpours 
His streams upon the fertile land, 
Or shall I tread the Phthian sand, 
Borne by the swift breath of the blast? 

ANTI2TPO*H 

O blowing wind ! you bring my sorrow near, 
For surely borne with splashing of the oar, 

And hidden in some galley-prison drear 
I shall be led unto that distant shore 



318 TRANSLATIONS 

Where the tall palm-tree first took root, and made, 
With clustering laurel leaves, a pleasant shade 
For Leto when with travail great she bore 
A god and goddess in Love's bitter fight, 
Her body's anguish, and her soul's delight. 



It may be in Delos, 

Encircled of seas, 
I shall sing with some maids 

From the Cyclades, 
Of Artemis goddess 

And queen and maiden, 
Sing of the gold 

In her hair heavy-laden. 
Sing of her hunting, 

Her arrows and bow, 
And in singing find solace 

From weeping and woe. 

2TPO$H B 

Or it may be my bitter doom 

To stand a handmaid at the loom, 
In distant Athens of supreme renown; 

And weave some wondrous tapestry, 

Or work in bright embroidery, 
Upon the crocus-flowered robe and saffron-coloured gown, 

The flying horses wrought in gold, 

The silver chariot onward rolled 
That bears Athena through the Town ; 



TRANSLATIONS 319 

Or the warring giants that strove to climb 
From earth to heaven to reign as kings, 
And Zeus the conquering son of Time 
Borne on the hurricane's eagle wings; 
And the lightning flame and the bolts that fell 

From the risen cloud at the god's behest, 
And hurled the rebels to darkness of hell, 

To a sleep without slumber or waking or rest. 



ANTI2TP04>H B 

Alas ! our children's sorrow, and their pain 

In slavery. 
Alas ! our warrior sires nobly slain 

For liberty. 
Alas ! our country's glory, and the name 

Of Troy's fair town ; 
By the lances and the fighting and the flame 

Tall Troy is down. 

I shall pass with my soul overladen, 

To a land far away and unseen, 
For Asia is slave and handmaiden, 

Europa is Mistress and Queen. 
Without love, or love's holiest treasure, 

I shall pass into Hades abhorred, 
To the grave as my chamber of pleasure, 

To death as my Lover and Lord. 



320 TRANSLATIONS 



A FRAGMENT FROM THE AGAMEMNON 
OF ^ESCHYLOS 

(Lines 1140-1173) 

[The scene is the court-yard of the Palace at Argos. Agamem- 
non has already entered the House of Doom, and Clytemnestra 
has followed close on his heels. Cassandra is left alone upon the 
stage. The conscious terror of death and the burden of prophecy 
lie heavy upon her; terrible signs and visions greet her approach. 
She sees blood upon the lintel, and the smell of blood scares her, 
as some bird, from the door. The ghosts of the murdered chil- 
dren come to mourn with her. Her second sight pierces the Pal- 
ace walls; she sees the fatal bath, the trammelling net, and the 
axe sharpened for her own ruin and her lord's. 

But not even in the hour of her last anguish is Apollo mer- 
ciful; her warnings are unheeded, her prophetic utterances made 
mock of. 

The orchestra is filled with a chorus of old men weak, foolish, 
irresolute. They do not believe the weird woman of mystery till 
the hour for help is past, and the cry of Agamemnon echoes from 
the house, "Oh me! I am stricken with a stroke of death."] 



CHORUS 

f I THY prophecies are but a lying tale, 
*■ For cruel gods have brought thee to this state, 
And of thyself and thine own wretched fate 
Sing you this song and these unhallowed lays, 

Like the brown bird of grief insatiate 
Crying for sorrow of its dreary days ; 

Crying for Itys, Itys, in the vale — 
The nightingale! The nightingale! 



TRANSLATIONS 321 



CASSANDRA 



Yet I would that to me they had given 

The fate of that singer so clear, 
Fleet wings to fly up unto heaven, 

Away from all mourning and fear ; 

For ruin and slaughter await me — the cleaving with 
sword and the spear. 



CHORUS 



Whence come these crowding fancies on thy brain, 

Sent by some god it may be, yet for naught? 
Why dost thou sing with evil-tongued refrain, 
Moulding thy terrors to this hideous strain 

With shrill, sad cries, as if by death distraught? 
Why dost thou tread that path of prophecy, 
Where, upon either hand, 
Landmarks for ever stand 
With horrid legend for all men to see? 



CASSANDRA 



O bitter bridegroom who didst bear 
Ruin to those that loved thee true ! 

O holy stream Scamander, where 
With gentle nurturement I grew 
In the first days, when life and love were new. 



322 TRANSLATIONS 

And now — and now — it seems that I must lie 
In the dark land that never sees the sun ; 

Sing my sad songs of fruitless prophecy 

By the black stream Cokytos that doth run 
Through long, low hills of dreary Acheron. 

CHORUS 

Ah, but thy word is clear! 
Even a child among men, 
Even a child might see 
What is lying hidden here. 
Ah ! I am smitten deep 
To the heart with a deadly blow 
At the evil fate of the maid, 
At the cry of her song of woe ! 
Sorrows for her to bear ! 
Wonders for me to hear! 



CASSANDRA 

O my poor land laid waste with flame and fire ! 

O ruined city overthrown by fate! 
Ah, what availed the offerings of my Sire 

To keep the foreign foemen from the gate! 
Ah, what availed the herds of pasturing kine 
To save my country from the wrath divine ! 

Ah, neither prayer nor priest availed aught, 

Nor the strong captains that so stoutly fought, 



TRANSLATIONS 323 

For the tall town lies desolate and low. 

And I, the singer of this song of woe, 
Know, by the fire burning in my brain, 
That Death, the healer of all earthly pain, 

Is close at hand! I will not shirk the blow. 



324 TRANSLATIONS 



SEN ARTYSTY; OR, THE ARTIST'S DREAM 

FROM THE POLISH OF MADAME HELENA MODJESKA 

I TOO have had my dreams : ay, known indeed 
The crowded visions of a fiery youth 
Which haunt me still. 



Methought that once I lay 
Within some garden close, what time the Spring 
Breaks like a bird from Winter, and the sky 
Is sapphire-vaulted. The pure air was soft, 
And the deep grass I lay on soft as air. 
The strange and secret life of the young trees 
Swelled in the green and tender bark, or burst 
To buds of sheathed emerald; violets 
Peered from their nooks of hiding 1 , half afraid 
Of their own loveliness ; the vermeil rose 
Opened its heart, and the bright star-flower 
Shone like a star of morning. Butterflies, 
In painted liveries of brown and gold, 
Took the shy bluebells as their pavilions 
And seats of pleasaunce ; overhead a bird 
Made snow of all the blossoms as it flew 



TRANSLATIONS 325 

To charm the woods with singing : the whole world 
Seemed waking to delight! 

And yet — and yet — 
My soul was filled with leaden heaviness : 
I had no joy in Nature; what to me, 
Ambition's slave, was crimson-stained rose 
Or the gold-sceptred crocus? The bright bird 
Sang out of tune for me, and the sweet flowers 
Seemed but a pageant, and an unreal show 
That mocked my heart ; for, like the fabled snake 
That stings itself to anguish, so I lay 
Self-tortured, self-tormented. 

The day crept 
Unheeded on the dial, till the sun 
Dropt, purple-sailed, into the gorgeous East, 
When, from the fiery heart of that great orb, 
Came One whose shape of beauty far outshone 
The most bright vision of this common earth. 
Girt was she in a robe more white than flame 
Or furnace-heated brass ; upon her head 
She bare a laurel crown, and, like a star 
That falls from the high heaven suddenly, 
Passed to my side. 

Then kneeling low, I cried 
"O much-desired! O long-waited for! 
Immortal Glory ! Great world-conqueror ! 
Oh, let me not die crownless ; once, at least, 
Let thine imperial laurels bind my brows, 
Ignoble else. Once let the clarion note 



326 TRANSLATIONS 

And trump of loud ambition sound my name, 
And for the rest I care not." 

Then to me, 
In gentle voice, the angel made reply : 
"Child, ignorant of the true happiness, 
Nor knowing life's best wisdom, thou wert made 
For light and love and laughter, not to waste 
Thy youth in shooting arrows at the sun, 
Or nurturing that ambition in thy soul 
Whose deadly poison will infect thy heart, 
Marring all joy and gladness! Tarry here 
In the sweet confines of this garden-close 
Whose level meads and glades delectable 
Invite for pleasure; the wild bird that wakes 
These silent dells with" sudden melody 
Shall be thy playmate ; and each flower that blows 
Shall twine itself unbidden in thy hair — 
Garland more meet for thee than the dread weight 
Of Glory's laurel wreath." 

"Ah ! fruitless gifts," 
I cried, unheeding of her prudent word, 
"Are all such mortal flowers, whose brief lives 
Are bounded by the dawn and setting sun. 
The anger of the noon can wound the rose, 
And the rain rob the crocus of its gold ; 
But thine immortal coroual of Fame, 
Thy crown of deathless laurel, this alone 
Age cannot harm, nor winter's icy tooth 
Pierce to its hurt, nor common things profane." 



TRANSLATIONS 327 

No answer made the angel, but her face 
Dimmed with the mists of pity. 

Then methought 
That from mine eyes, wherein ambition's torch 
Burned with its latest and most ardent flame, 
Flashed forth two level beams of straitened light, 
Beneath whose fulgent fires the laurel crown 
Twisted and curled, as when the Sirian star 
Withers the ripening corn, and one pale leaf 
Fell on my brow ; and I leapt up and felt 
The mighty pulse of Fame, and heard far off 
The sound of many nations praising me ! 



One fiery-coloured moment of great life! 
And then — how barren was the nations' praise ! 
How vain the trump of Glory ! Bitter thorns 
Were in that laurel leaf, whose toothed barbs 
Burned and bit deep till fire and red flame 
Seemed to feed full upon my brain, and make 
The garden a bare desert. 

With wild hands 
I strove to tear it from my bleeding brow, 
But all in vain; and with a dolorous cry 
That paled the lingering stars before their time, 
I waked at last, and saw the timorous dawn 
Peer with grey face into my darkened room, 
And would have deemed it a mere idle dream 
But for this restless pain that gnaws my heart, 
And the red wounds of thorns upon my brow. 



INDEX TO TITLES AND FIRST LINES 

(Titles are set in capitals and small capitals ; first lines, in 
upper and lower case.) 



A fair slim boy not made for 

this world's pain, 273. 
AtXcvov aKXcvov eixe to 8' eu 

vixaxo), 268. 

Against these turbid turquoise 
skies, 285. 

A lily-girl, not made for this 
world's pain, 66. 

Amor Intellectualis, 149. 

Apologia, 177. 

A ring of gold and a milk- 
white dove, 103. 

Artist, The, 297. 

At Verona, 176. 

Athanasia, 94. 

Ave Imperatrix, 21. 

Ave Maria Gratia Plena, 54. 

A white mist drifts across the 
shrouds, 275. 

A year ago I breathed the 
Italian air, 3. 

Albeit nurtured in democ- 
racy, 32. 

And there was silence in the 
House of Judgment, 302. 

An omnibus across the bridge, 
288. 

As oftentimes the too resplen- 
dent sun, 180. 

As one who poring on a Gre- 
cian urn, 161. 

Ballad of Reading Gaol, The, 

235. 
Ballade de Marguerite, 144. 
Ballons, Les, 285. 
Bella Donna della mia 

Mente, La, 101. 



Burden of Itys, The, 71. 
By the Arno, 154. 

Camma, 161. 

Canzonet, 286. 

Chanson, 103. 

Charmides, 105. 

Chorus of Cloud Maidens, 315. 

Christ, dost thou live indeed? 
or are thy bones, 30. 

Cloud maidens that float on 
forever, 315. 

Come down, O Christ, and 
help me reach thy hand, 64. 

Could we dig up this long- 
buried treasure, 291. 

Dear Heart I think the young 
impassioned priest, 179. 

Disciple, The, 300. 

Doer of Good, The, 298. 

Dole of the King's Daugh- 
ter, The, 147. 

Eagle of Austerlitz! where 

were thy wings, 29. 
Easter Day, 63. 
Eleutheria, 19. 
Endymion, 99. 
E Tenebris, 64. 

Fabien dei Franchi, 157. 
Fantaisies Decoratives, 283. 
Flower of Love, 207. 
Flowers of Gold, 137. 
Fourth Movement, The, 173. 
Fragment from the Agamem- 
non of vEschylus, A, 320. 



329 



330 



TITLES AND FIRST LINES 



From his childhood he had 
been as one filled with the 
perfect knowledge of God, 
305. 

From Spring Days to Win- 
ter, 267. 

FUITE DE LA LuNE, La, 140. 

Garden of Eros, The, 35. 

rXuxuicixpos "Epwq, 209. 
Go, little book, 290. 
Grave of Keats, The, 141. 
Grave of Shelley, The, 153. 

Harlot's House, The, 278. 

Helas! 18. 

He did not wear his scarlet 
coat, 237. 

He was a Grecian lad, who 
coming home, 107. 

Her ivory hands on the ivory 
keys, 143. 

Her Voice, 181. 

House of Judgment, The, 302. 

How steep the stairs within 
Kings' houses are, 176. 

How vain and dull this com- 
mon world must seem, 158. 

Humanitad, 185. 

I am weary of lying within the 

chase, 144. 
I can write no stately poem, iii. 
I have no store, 286. 
I marvel not Bassanio was so 

bold, 159. 
Impression du Matin, 91. 
Impression de Voyage, 152. 
Impression: Le Reveillon, 
. 175. 
Impressions: Les Silhouettes, 

La Fuite de la Lune, 140. 
Impressions de Theatre, 155. 
In the Forest, 289. 
In the Gold Room, 143. 
I reached the Alps: the soul 

within me burned, 52. 



I stood by the unvintageable 

sea, 65. 
I too have had my dreams: ay, 

known indeed, 324. 
I wandered through Scogli- 

etto's far retreat, 56. 
In a dim corner of my room 

for longer than my fancy 

thinks, 215. 
In the glad spring time when 

leaves were green, 267. 
In the lone tent, waiting for 

victory, 160. 
Is it thy will that I should 

wax and wane, 177. 
It is full summer now, the 

heart of June, 37. 
It is full Winter now: the 

trees are bare, 187. 
It was night-time and He was 

alone, 298. 
Italia, 55. 
Italia! thou art fallen, though 

with sheen, 55. 

Jardin, Le, 274. 

Jardin des Tuileries, Le. 280. 

Libertatis Sacra Fames, 32. 
Like burnt-out torches by a 

sick man's bed, 153. 
Lotus Leaves, 270. 
Louis Napoleon, 29. 

Madonna Mia, 66. 

Magdalen Walks, 92. 

Master, The, 301. 

Mer, La, 275. 

Milton ! I think thy spirit hath 

passed away, 28. 
My limbs are wasted with a 

flame, 101. 
My Voice, 183. 

Nay, let us walk from fire 

unto fire, 165. 
Nay, Lord, not thus! white 

lilies in the spring, 62. 
New Helen, The, 67. 



TITLES AND FIRST LINES 



331 



New Remorse, The, 282. 
Not that I love thy children, 

whose dull eyes, 27. 
Now when the darkness came 

over the earth, 301. 

O beautiful star with the crim- 
son mouth! 276. 

O fair wind blowing from the 
sea! 317. 

O singer of Persephone! 142. 

O well for him who lives at 
ease, 268. 

Oft have we trod the vales of 
Castaly, 149. 

One evening there came into 
his soul, 297. 

On the Recent Sale by Auc- 
tion of Keats' Love Let- 
ters, 281. 

Out of the mid-wood's twilight, 
289. 

Panneau, Le, 283. 
Panthea, 163. 
Phedre, 158. 
Poems in Prose, 295. 
Portia, 159. 

Quantum Mutata, 31. 
Queen Henrietta Maria, 160. 
Quia Multum Amavi, 179. 

Ravenna, 1. 

Requiescat, 51. 

Reveillon, Le, 175. 

Rid of the world's injustice, 
and his pain, 141. 

Rome Unvisited, 57. 

Rome! what a scroll of His- 
tory thine has been, 61. 

Rosa Mystica, 49. 

San Miniato, 53. 
Santa Decca, 150. 
See, I have climbed the moun- 
tain side, 53. 



Sen Artysty; or, The Art- 
ist's Dream, 324. 

Serenade, 97. 

Set in this stormy Northern 
sea, 21. 

Seven stars in the still water, 
147. 

SlLENTIUM AMORIS, 180. 

Silhouettes, Les, 139. 

Sonnet on Approaching 
Italy, 52. 

Sonnet on Hearing the Dies 
IrjE Sung, 62. 

Sonnet on the Massacre of 
Christians in Bulgaria, 30. 

Sonnet to Liberty, 27. 

Sonnet Written in Holy 
Week at Genoa, 56. 

Sonnets written at the Ly- 
ceum Theatre, 159. 

Sphinx, The, 213. 

Sweet I blame you not for 
mine the fault was, 209. 

Symphony in Yellow, 288. 

Tedium Vitje, 184. 

Teacher of Wisdom, The, 305. 

The apple-trees are hung with 
gold, 99. 

The corn has turned from grey 
to red, 57. 

The Gods are dead: no longer 
do we bring, 150. 

The lily's withered chalice 
falls, 274. 

The little white clouds are rac- 
ing over the sky, 92. 

Theocritus, 142. 

Theoretikos, 33. 

©pirjvtpSfa, 317. 

The oleander on the wall, 154. 

The sea is flecked with bars 

of grey, 139. 
The sea was sapphire coloured, 

and the sky, 152. 
The silent room, the heavy 

creeping shade, 157. 



332 



TITLES AND FIRST LINES 



The silver trumpets rang 

across the Dome, 63. 
The sin was mine; I did not 

understand, 282. 
The sky is laced with fitful 

red, 175. 
The Thames nocturne of blue 

and gold, 91. 
The western wind is blowing 

fair, 97. 
The wild bee reels from bough 

to bough, 181. 
There is no peace beneath the 

noon, 270. 
There was a time in Europe 

long ago, 31. 
These are the letters which 

Endymion wrote, 281. 
This English Thames is holier 

far than Rome, 73. 
This mighty empire hath but 

feet of clay, 33. 
This winter air is keen and 

cold, 280. 
Thou knowest all; I seek in 

vain, 269. 
Thy prophecies are but a lying 

tale, 320. 
To drift with every passion till 

my soul, 19. 
To L. L., 291. 
To Milton, 28. 
To my Wife: With a Copy 

of my Poems, iii. 



To outer senses there is peace, 
140. 

To stab my youth with desper- 
ate knives, to wear, 184. 

To that gaunt House of Art 
which lacks for naught, 94. 

Translations, 313. 

Tread lightly, she is near, 51. 

True Knowledge, The, 269. 

Two crowned Kings, and One 
that stood alone, 151. 

Under the Balcony, 276. 
Under the rose-tree's dancing 

shade, 283. 
Urbs Sacra ^Eterna, 61. 

Vision, A, 151. 
Vita Nuova, 65. 

Wasted Days, 273. 

Was this His coming! I had 
hoped to see, 54. 

We caught the tread of dan- 
cing feet, 278. 

When Narcissus died the pool 
of his pleasure changed, 300. 

Where hast thou been since 
round the walls of Troy, 67. 

Wind Flowers, 89. 

With a Copy of "A House of 
Pomegranates," 290. 

Within this restless, hurried, 
modern world, 183. 



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